


Creepy Potter and the Heir of Slytherin

by Piff



Series: Harry Potter and the Cursed Children [2]
Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angry Murder Children, Blood, Brotherly Agression, Brotherly Love, Dark Harry Potter, Gen, Identity Issues, Mistakes Are Made, Violence, much swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-06-08 05:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 48,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15236148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piff/pseuds/Piff
Summary: Harry Potter survived his first year at Hogwarts, huzzah! Now Boy has to survive a summer at home with his brothers, before starting all over again with his second year of school.Mistakes are made, Snakes are insulted, Diaries are ruined. Huzzah?





	1. Monsters

When Boy had been four, he’d had a nightmare. Not surprising since they had just watched some sort of movie with lots of monsters and killing and blood. It had been pretty scary for a small child still getting used to the casual mayhem of his new family. 

It wasn’t a big nightmare, he didn’t wake up screaming or anything, just deeply concerned about the future and the people who’d rescued him. 

Boy crept out of the trundle bed laid out on the floor between the older boys and climbed up into Jeff’s. The black-out curtains over the only window meant that even though it was full daylight it was pretty dark inside. He moved along mostly by feel until he could find the lump that was his brother.

“What th’ fuck do you think you’re doing Pipsqueak?” 

Boy didn’t answer right away, waiting until he had burrowed in under the blanket and cuddled up against Jeff’s warm back. Only once he was settled in did he whisper- “I had a dream.”

“Ahuh.”

“The monsters came.”

“Ahuh.”

“It was very sad.”

“Ahuh.”

“What if the monsters come?”

Jeff groaned. He rolled over suddenly, wrapping his arms around the tiny child and curling around him like a large cat. “Brat, we ARE the monsters. Go th’ fuck to sleep.”

Oh. Ok. Huh.. Well that made things a lot better, as Boy’s view of how the world worked shifted. Why should he worry about being attacked in the middle of the night, when he would be the one doing the attacks? Not now, not for a while, but.. 

Wow. 

Boy snuggled close with a much lighter mind. Jeff was the best monster.

Years later, Boy woke up from an equally disturbing dream. With an odd sense of deja vu that he couldn’t place, he crept down from his tower and tiptoed into Jeff’s room. Climbing onto the bed, into the narrow space between Jeff and the wall, Boy made himself comfortable.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Just pretend I’m not here.”

He heard a heavy sigh and then Jeff shifting around. The blanket was tugged out from under Boy and he quickly curled up against Jeff’s back. Boy made the attempt to not put his cold feet anywhere near the Killer out of respect. 

“So? What is it?”

“I had a dream and it got.. weird.”

“Ahuh.”

“I was away at school for so long that I became a normal person and couldn’t come home anymore.”

“It was just a dream, Brat.”

“But it’s true isn’t it? I could forget that I’m a killer and.. and.. I don’t know. Want a puppy and a train set. And then I wouldn’t be able to come back because you all would want to kill me. I’d end up being dinner. Not even a fancy dinner, just a plain and boring dinner that everyone would complain about because it’s so ordinary.”

“For fuck’s sake..” 

Boy leaned away as Jeff rolled over to his back. An arm wrapped around Boy’s neck and jerked him closer. It was a comfort to be able to put his ear to Jeff’s chest and listen to his heartbeat, a strong and steady rhythm to soothe the nerves. Jeff was never afraid. 

He’d almost dozed off when Jeff started speaking. “Slender claimed you when you were just a baby, there’s no going back from that. It’s not like being a Proxy is a disease that can be cleared up with antibiotics. You’ll never be normal again so stop worrying.”

“If he ever was,” Eyeless pointed out from across the room. “There was that curse attached to him right?”

“Yeah. See? Even if we hadn’t snatched you up, you never had a fucking chance at being normal. And even if that was a possibility, then fuck school and fuck magic, you’d never leave the castle.”

The last of Boy’s anxiety ebbed off. His brothers had his back, he needed to remember that. He was the annoying baby brother, they’d keep him safe. They always had.

He still wasn’t ready to sleep though, as comfortable and relaxed as he was. Boy was still adjusting to the schedule change, trapped in this weird area of exhaustion and wide awake. He should keep to the school one but that would mean missing out on so much!

“Jeff?”

“Why can’t you bother Eyeless with this shit? Not like he’s sleeping.” At a soft snort from across the room- “shut the fuck up Eyeless.”

Boy grinned. He knew better than to listen to the grumbling, Jeff would bitch even more if Boy went to someone else when upset.

“What if I brought someone home? Someday. Like, if I made a friend at the school who wasn’t too fucking stupid.”

He could almost hear Jeff and Eyeless exchanging glances, impossible as it was.

Right. And that was why a week later Boy still hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about his plans to meet Neville in Diagon Alley. Even if it was going to be a bitch and a half to get to London, and then get back from London, on his own, it would hopefully be worth it.

Making plans was _hard_. No wonder Toby avoided it.

Walking his fingers over the map, Boy tried to judge how long it would take on a bicycle. Slower than a car but faster than walking so… Boy was stumped. He either needed to leave in the middle of the day before, or the middle of the night before. That was a long fucking bike ride either way, so he’d need to find a way to stay awake once he got there.

“ _Stop lazing about, you unnatural abomination, and fetch my dinner!”_

Boy rolled his eyes. THAT was his new pet courtesy of Slender Man. A moon-colored serpent whose aquarium was wedged into the last available space of his tower room. The albino cobra stood as high as the lid would allow, hood fully extended and bobbing side to side in irritation.

“ _Hold your fucking horses. And you ate yesterday, why the fuck are you already hungry_?” Boy turned around to hiss back.

Under his desk, where normally the chair would have been tucked in, was another cage but of field mice. 

(Ever go hunting for tiny mice in a field and NOT kill them? Boy didn’t recommend it. Maybe he should start breeding them.. Way fucking easier.)

Boy grabbed one by the tail and took it over to the snake tank. There was a little opening on top big enough for the mouse to be dropped in but not for the snake to get out. Though he had tried on numerous occasions, almost as if he could not make himself believe he’d been trapped.

_“Here you go, Daddy Dearest.”_

_“Never. Say. That. Again.”_

Boy smirked at Voldemort’s tiny, snake-eyed glare. “ _Maybe if somebody didn’t go around losing pieces of their soul like some sort of idiot…_

Voldemort struck at the tank wall with an infuriated hiss, fangs clacking on the glass.

Boy smirked again before returning to the map spread across the top of his desk. Being forced to share a room with the asshole who not only tried to kill him multiple times, but finding out the asshole was also a sort of spiritual father figure because of the soul curse thing? Boy was not going to make it easy on him. Ever.

Then again…

Voldemort had been a wizard once. A long time ago. Before cars and bicycles and rational thinking, with the other cavemen.. Maybe Boy could make one or two concessions.

_“Hey Old Man, how would you get to London?”_

_“Go to hell, you monstrous son of a dementor.”_

_“Hey, that’s no way to talk about yourself,"_ Boy taunted.

_“I AM NOT YOUR FATHER!” ___

___“Start being helpful and maybe I’ll fucking forget that YOUR soul got lodged in MY head and that it’s a part of me!”_ _ _

__Voldemort hissed. No specific words, just out of sheer rage at the audacity of this freakish demon child._ _


	2. Worthy

Best. Bus ride. Ever. 

He didn’t ride the bus very often, only once in fact, but for his second time it was absolutely brilliant. Better than driving with Toby!

“‘ere’s yer stop, Woods. ‘av a good day now!”

‘Harley Woods’ stumbled off the bus with a grin and legs that wobbled under him. He waved back at the bus driver and the talking shrunken head, one hand on his sunglasses to make sure they were still there. “Thanks!”

That had been WILD!

He had the feeling Voldemort had deliberately down-played how chaotic it would be, but Harley forgave him just this once. The zooming, the squeezing, the jumping, everything about that ride had been amazing. He was really, really looking forward to the trip back home. Maybe he could ask them to take the long way? Like, around the world? Did people _actually_ sleep in the beds while the bus jumped around?

Harley- Boy- no, fuck, _Harry_ ducked into the Leaky Cauldron. He’d braided his mass of hair tightly against his scalp, and then threaded it down the back of his robe to hide it away. He was trying, just a little bit, to not look too much like a wild vagabond since he was meeting Neville’s Grandmother later. All the newspapers had had pictures of him with his hair playing Medusa, so maybe a new hairstyle meant no one would pay him much attention..? 

It worked for Superman!

His robe was clean, if thoroughly rumpled now thanks to him tumbling around the bus like a pinball. Too short, but that’s what this trip was for wasn’t it? New school robes and books and whatever the fuck else was on his list. Which.. he had.. somewhere.

Harry checked his pockets and then the time. Hah. Meeting Neville at the Leaky Cauldron was genius- he could get some coffee and beat back the urge to take a nap. Boy had claimed a headache and nausea in order to get an early bedtime without making anyone at home suspicious, so he wasn’t too tired.. Yet. Time to start drinking his bodyweight in coffee!

Harry was only on his second cup though when the fireplace flared. He watched in  
fascination when out of the flames stepped an elderly woman with a giant vulture attached to her hat. A second flare of fire sent Neville stumbling out, so that was Harry’s cue to toss back the rest of his cup and hurry over.

Going for politeness, Harry offered a hand to the presumed Grandmother. “Hi! I’m Harry!” 

“So I see.”

So.. Uhh...Lady Longbottom read a lot of newspaper articles. Harry hadn’t paid them much mind himself, but it turned out that some people actually paid a great deal of attention to the stories. Lady Longbottom being one of them, she did not have a high opinion whatsoever about Harry Potter the rule breaker, dog killer, potential child of the enemy.

“She.. she means well..” Neville tried to explain after the intense grilling of Harry’s pre-Hogwarts education, his unacceptable attire, his manners or lack of, what he was going to do with his inheritance, how he was planning to live up to his parents' expectations.. If they were his parents.

“Toby means well most of the time too, and I have the scars to prove how little that matters to me,” Harry hissed quietly. This was not how he thought the day would go. 

Neville winced. 

After spending a painful hour buying new robes (they were all black, all the same size, all the same style. Why the fuck did it have to take a fucking hour to get them fitted?) Harry was still trying to figure out a way to get the Hag off his back without damaging Neville’s.. relationship?... with his Grandmother.

Normally Harry wouldn’t care, but Neville was the one who had to live with the woman. If this was her ‘Public Face’, what the fuck did she do behind closed doors? The needling comments, the insinuations that Neville was stupid, lazy, unable to take care of himself, failing everything his parents would have wanted for him, it was _endless_ and said so nonchalantly that Harry was left dazed and wondering if it had really been an insult.

Sheesh, no wonder Neville looked pale. And that he’d started to gain back all the baby-weight he’d run off at school. Was this how a wizarding family acted? Harry would keep his psycho family with their unconditional support of his hobbies.

Neville leaned over to whisper as quietly as he could- “We’ll be able to wander off in the bookshop. She’ll want to get the schoolbooks done right away and the clerks gather them up for us at the front counter. It’ll be.. easy…”

Harry stopped. 

Neville stopped because Harry had.

Lady Longbottom paused and pursed her lips in disapproval at the massive crowd in front of and inside of the bookshop. Some sort of author signing? There were huge posters of some blonde douche smiling and winking at the crowd.

“Like hell am I going in there,” Harry muttered mulishly. 

“Err…”

“The two of you will stay out here. Neville, I’m sure even you can manage to stay out of trouble for a few minutes. Do try not to wander off until I get back.” She gave Harry a long look but for once kept her thoughts to herself.

“Yes Gran,” Neville replied obediently. He didn’t have to look at Harry, he could hear the grinding of teeth so he could easily imagine the expression. Once the woman had marched inside-

“I’m.. sorry?”

Harry glared at him over his sunglasses. “Can she track us?”

“What?”

“Can. She. Track. Us?”

“Errr… I don’t think so?”

Harry twisted his hand around to grab Neville by the wrist. Without another word he started dragging the boy off and away from the store and the crowd and the Hag.

“We are going exploring, cause if I’m going to get my ass beat for coming here by myself, I am going to have some fucking fun. YOU are going to have some fucking fun. Got it?”

“G-got it.” Neville looked back over his shoulder as Harry continued to drag him away, to see if his Gran had seen them leave. The answer being ‘no’, the tension in his shoulders started to melt away and Neville even managed a smile. Harry was right as usual- if he was going to be miserable no matter what, he should have some fun first!

“Hey Harry, turn left. They get some really crazy stuff at the pet shop sometimes.”

“Alright. Then the potions shop, I want to look at the kni- weird stuff in the bottles.”

“Deal. Sometimes they have rare plants too.”

Harry was thoroughly enjoying an ice cream by the time the Hag found them later. The pair had been in and out of most of the stores by that point, the only mishap coming from the gaggle of redheads that they had run into at the stationary store. Literally. The smallest one, a mortified little girl, had nearly broken Harry’s kneecap with her heavy cauldron as the two crashed in the doorway. Books had gone flying, Harry had dropped his new potions ingredients, it was a mad scramble as people tried to help them back up to their feet and sort the scattered packages. 

Her mother, and Ron’s mother it turned out so _that_ was fun, fussed over Harry and Neville to the point Harry actually ducked behind Neville to get away from her. Neville of course thought it was hilarious, even as Harry jabbed a finger into his back. Hard. 

Once able to finally escape, _“No Mrs. Weaselly, my Grandmother is here too, we’ll be fine I promise!”_ , the boys scurried into the shop to hide in the back.

As they waited for a safe time to leave, Neville picked out a journal with a tree tooled into the leather cover while Harry admired a bottle of ink that was the most perfect shade of red he’d ever seen outside of a corpse. It wasn’t a surprise that Harry bought the ink, the surprise came when on the way to the register Harry swept up a half dozen plain black journals.

“I didn’t take you for the kind to keep a diary.”

“What? No, these are for a project. I’m trying to write a horror story and I need to make these look old and worn out. I want a bunch in case I accidentally destroy one.”

“What are you going to DO to them?”

“Just help me with these stupid coins.”

But eventually came the stop for ice cream and Harry’s new favorite treat. What the hell was Treacle even made of? Cocaine? He was so coming back again for it, with or without permission because _damn._ He ignored the Hag as she stormed up scolding a mile a minute, Harry taking comfort from Neville’s earlier explanation that no, she acted like this all the time.

Hard as it was to believe with the awful way she talked to Neville, but he wasn’t going to get locked in a dungeon or horse-whipped or even spanked or given extra chores. 

Neville had shrugged at Harry’s incredulous look. 

“I’ll probably not be allowed in the greenhouse for a while, that’s all. She doesn’t do physical punishments, just the… verbal ones. It’ll be worth it though, I’ve never been able to explore Diagon either.” 

Harry thought Neville didn’t have much to worry about. HE had quite a few things to look forward to, a mere beating would be the least of Boy’s worries. But- “yeah, this was great. J- they’re gunna to be royally pissed off but they can’t scream at me too much. I know what they all got up to at my age!”

Neville was marched off under the hand of his Grandmother (who gave one last scathing glare at Harry) and the promise to see him on the train. 

Harry debated getting another ice cream, but no he should probably order some real food back at the Leaky Cauldron. An early dinner, catch the bus back to the Castle, sneak inside.. Today had been a good day.


	3. TipToe

_“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..”_

Do you know what happens when you have eight older brothers who were mad as hell because they’d been scared because of something stupid? Especially when said stupidity waltzed in through the front door completely oblivious to all the brewing chaos? Nothing good, that’s what. 

Boy ducked under a branch and tried not to break his neck tripping over a hidden tree root. He couldn’t hear anyone behind him but that didn’t mean no one was there.

He could barely see the trees in front of him but he didn’t dare turn on the flashlight. Maybe he could use it as a weapon.. No, better not piss them off any more than they already were.

What was that? Boy turned his head this way and that to figure out which direction the crunch had come from.

FUCK. 

Boy bolted, trying to shake off his stalker. He looked for more low-hanging branches, because them having to bend down more to avoid the tree might give him a minor advantage? Maybe? 

Masky, as the eldest Proxy and generally in charge when Slender wasn’t around, had chosen a special sort of punishment for Boy. It was terrifying. 

While technically all Boy had to do was make it back to the Castle without getting captured, in truth it meant Boy had not one, not two, but _seven different hunters_ on his tail. Each time he got tackled, pinned, trapped, he was returned to the starting point and he had to begin again.

The only two not playing the game were BEN and Laughing Jack. BEN because the forest was not a good place for a computerized ghost, and L.J. because of the whole killing-children thing. They wanted Boy to feel punished, not dead. How nice of them to clarify the matter.

That still left seven, SEVEN, hunters who were all more experienced, and stronger, and faster than Boy and it WASN’T FUCKING FAIR. If it had been one-on-one, he could have had a chance at getting around them. 

Not a good chance, not even a decent chance, but a _chance._

Boy had no chance at all when it was ALL of them against ONE of him! Especially with Masky and Hoody tag-teaming. This was their element, their _thing,_ what they did best in the whole wide fucking world and they were now targeting him specifically. Boy might have played around with them in the forest as a baby, an event that had still been pretty fucking terrifying by the way, but this was not a silly game that was going to end in cookies. 

Blood maybe, but not baked goods.

The funny part was- Boy had realized on the bus ride home that it wasn’t even going to be evening yet when he got back. That meant his brothers would still be asleep! No one would have to know he’d left the castle for the day! He was feeling so fucking clever as he biked home the couple miles between where the bus dropped him off and the castle.

Yeah.

No.

Jeff had thrown a chair at him. A very sturdy chair that shattered against the wall with how hard Jeff had thrown it. Only reason Boy hadn’t been smashed along with it was because Liu had jerked him out of the way at the last second.

“WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?”

“School shopping…” Boy trailed off weakly. He was struck with a sudden understanding on why Neville would go small and meek around his Grandmother. 

Boy had never been afraid of Jeff in his life, but uhh… it was getting pretty close at this present moment. Jeff’s anger was setting Liu off too, the teen pulling Boy back against his chest as Jeff stalked towards them. Liu’s protective stance over Boy did not go unnoticed either.

“Fuck you Liu!”

“As if you don’t have a track record of stabbing first and questions later,” Liu snapped. 

“When have I fucking ever-!”

“You _really_ want to go there? _Really? Right now?”_

“Whoa, whoa. You two take it outside if you’re gunna fight.” Taller than both of them, Masky put himself between the snarling brothers and plucked Boy out of Liu’s grasp. “He’s here, he’s in one piece, go run off some steam before you do something you’re going to regret.”

“Fucking _make_ me!”

Masky gave Jeff a Look, making him hesitate. The dread in Boy’s belly knotted up even further. Masky only got involved when the situation endangered the Proxies as a whole, individual matters he left to Eyeless. Boy tried to make himself smaller.

Things went further down hill from there and ended with Boy sprinting through the forest and dodging the horde. He shouldn’t even be running, it was hard to be quiet while running, and Boy knew he was broadcasting his position but nothing else had worked so far. 

He’d tried sneaking! He’d tried being super quiet and tiptoeing around and listening as hard as possible for footsteps. Nothing worked!

Speaking of- the shock of getting tackled to the ground left Boy wheezing for air. “Shit..”

Hissed into his ear, _“try again.”_

Boy bit back a whimper as he sat up rubbing his aching shoulder. That was the fourth time he’d been tackled, Boy was sure he was covered in bruises. “I can’t fucking DO it!”

Jeff was without sympathy. He hauled Boy back up to his feet and turned him around to face the way he’d come from. “Too fucking bad. We got all fucking night for you to get this done so try. Again.”

Boy stumbled at the hard shove against his back. He was so tired he could cry. He’d been up all day running around with Neville, had a sort of late lunch or early dinner before leaving Diagon Alley, and now he’d spent most of the night running around some more.

Feeling his lower lip start to tremble, Boy grit his teeth and forced himself to jog back to the clearing. Eyeless was keeping watch this time, lounging back in a folding chair.

“Already?”

Boy trudged up to the rock circle assembled in almost the direct center of the field. Looking up, Boy noted that it could have been a beautiful night for games. No clouds and a full moon meant the sky was full of stars and gorgeous. Perfect for midnight tag.

“Hey.” Eyeless crooked a finger at him. When Boy stopped in front of him, Eyeless carded his fingers through Boy’s hair to remove twigs and leaves and chunks of dirt. Eyeless then checked him over for broken bones or heavy bleeding since they truly didn’t want him badly harmed.

Boy whined under the gentle touch, feeling every bruise start clamoring for attention. He almost wished he HAD tripped and cracked his head on a rock if it meant the night would just end already.

The blue mask a strange blob in the darkness, Eyeless gestured towards the treeline. “You’re fine. Still got a couple hours till sunrise though, so get a move on.”

The tremble came back and Boy scrubbed at his mouth to make it stop. Straightening his spine and pulling his shoulders back, Boy looked around the clearing to gauge the best way to exit. Not that it really mattered..

This time Smile Dog caught him. The red and black fur shifted oddly in the shadows and the abnormal grin got even freakier. 

“Okay, look.” Time to try a new tactic. “I’ll give you every candybar I have in my room, if you pretend you never saw me.”

Smile Dog growled.

“Every candybar I have and.. I’ll let you sleep on the bed.” It would be a bit cramped on Boy’s narrow bed, but Boy would take any advantage he could right now. He was.. so.. tired..

Smile Dog came to a decision with a wag of his tail, bounding up to Boy to grab a hand with his teeth to shake the deal. He nudged Boy towards the left before he bounded off. Boy heard the unmistakable sounds of someone being knocked to the ground and cursing.

Good dog. 

Boy scuttled off as quietly as he could while Hoody was distracted. He continued to go in the direction Smiley had shown him, trying so hard to listen for unusual sounds that he missed the perfectly natural sound.

“Mother. Fucker.”

There was a river in the forest. Stream. Trickle. It barely reached Boy’s hips as he sat there in the water and tried to remember that he was almost twelve years old and throwing a tantrum would not solve anything. Just make it worse.

“Gotc- WHOA,” and SPLASH. 

Unlike Boy, Toby face-planted into the water as he tripped over a tree-root. On his hands and knees Toby shook his head and sent water flying everywhere.

“We have a RIVER? That’s awesome!” Toby didn’t care that he was crawling around in cold water in the middle of the night. He was just sad it was too shallow to doggy paddle. That was Toby, easily distracted. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“If I get home before you do, I can make hot chocolate! Lots of it!” Boy blurted out. Bribery had worked once, he could make it work again! 

“Ooo that’ll be great. It’s freezing out here!”

Boy clamped his mouth shut before he could say ‘No shit!’ He scrambled back to his feet and tried not to shiver too badly. He sent a prayer to the depths of hell that please, please, please, with three out of seven people distracted, could he pleaaaaaase make it the fuck home now?


	4. Fenced In

Boy hissed through his teeth.

Every bone in his body hurt today. Getting out of bed took some time when even the smallest movement of his arms and legs caused a sharp stab of pain.

“ _Now_ what?” Boy whined as he followed Hoody out. He’d just barely gone to bed hadn’t he? Sleeping in Jeff and Eyeless’ room like a baby again ‘cause they didn’t trust him not to run off. As if he was going to do THAT anytime soon. Give him a few months.

(Damn dog was going to cover his bed in fur and fleas. And fuck Voldie, he could starve.)

“Rise and shine, my demonic little duckling, we have things to do. It’s a beauuutiful summer’s day, full of sunshine and happiness and back-breaking chores!”

“You guys fucking suck.”

“Should have remembered that before running off!” Hoody was way too fucking cheerful at this time of day. Boy hated him. A lot. How the hell could he be up and moving when Boy could barely walk?

“It’s noon!” he whined, rubbing at his eyes as they passed through the game room.

“Yup! Sadly, unlike our soulless family of misfits, the animals need sunlight to live their blissfully unaware lives. So chop chop, we got animals to feed!”

Oh. Ohh. Well fuck everything. So that’s how they’d found out so fucking fast! Masky and Hoody got up in the middle of the day for a few hours to tend to the animals and the garden. They probably thought he’d want to help out since he’d been having trouble sleeping.

Boy was so fucking _stupid._

He got an apple and water bottle from Eyeless in the kitchen and another reminder how stupid he’d been because Eyeless _didn’t fucking sleep._ At all. Boy might as well hung out a banner saying HA HA I’VE RUN AWAY! 

Swearing under his breath, Boy left through the kitchen door into the backyard. If it could be called a yard when it was a field of random trees and boulders. On the left side were the random bits of garden, Hoody not bothering to lay it out in tidy lines because _‘they’re tomatoes, not soldiers.”_

On the right where it was slightly more cleared out was Masky’s hen-house. And goat?

“When the fuck did we get a goat?”

“Yesterday! I was out roaming around because someone has to keep track of the neighbors, and found this sweet little goatling just sitting there in a pen all by her lonesome. And I just knew the very thing that Masky wished for in the whole wide world was a little goat to stink up the place.”

“Masky likes goats?” That was news to Boy.

“Nope! But I brought her home anyways. Easier than raiding the dairy farm all the time.”

It actually wasn’t that sunny out, but a lovely cloud-filled day that threatened to start raining at any moment. Boy was still squinting though, because it was the middle of the goddamn day and too bright after the dimness of the castle hallways.

“Couldn’t you have let me sleep a few more hours after last night?” Boy hadn’t intended for that to come out so pitiful, but if it worked... 

“Nope! What, you thought that was all we were going to do?” Hoody slung an arm over Boy’s shoulders. “You poor little sucker. Nah, that’s was just the beginning. You pissed off Masky and that’s pretty hard to do. Which means today we’re building a fence! Can’t do it at night of course, we don’t need you whacking a few fingers off ‘cause you can’t see where the hammer is going.”

They weren’t just building a fence it turned out, but an entire pen for the little goat named Sally. 

“Look at the splotch on her side, doesn’t it look like a teddy bear?”

“Maybe to a blind man.” 

“Go get the toolbox, you sassy little fuck. We’re gunna need a bunch of nails and a couple hammers. See if you can find the nail gun. Make sure it’s charged!”

Boy rolled his eyes. The toolbox was back in the basement. Why the hell did he have to come all the way out here just to go all the way back into the fucking house? Grumbling even more under his breath, Boy stomped back to the kitchen. Through there to the basement, Boy went hunting for the toolbox. 

Technically, the whole prep room was a giant tool box, but Boy couldn't just haul everything up with him, he needed a box to carry it all. Thus, the toolbox. While Boy was looking he found a baseball bat, covered in dust but the wood seemed to be sound.

Boy whacked it against the wall a couple times. Hey, this could work. He’d need to cut it down.. almost in half.. But he’d have a Beater’s Bat! Cool! He dumped a couple boxes of nails into the toolbox, and found the hammers. Two? Three? Eh, he’d bring four. Just in case. 

No nail-gun in sight sadly, and Boy couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it. When they had repaired the dining room table maybe? 

Some days.. it paid to be in the right place, at the right time, in the right mood. As Boy left the basement he caught the sound of heavy, stumbling footsteps. A rhythm that was nothing like the footsteps of the psychos intent on ruining his life. Boy dropped the toolbox on the kitchen table and jumped over to stand beside the backdoor. 

This was gunna be gooood...

Knees bent and feet braced against the floor, Boy swung his new weapon as hard as he could into the stranger’s gut as they bolted inside. The force of the hit against a moving target nearly knocked Boy off his feet, but the squelching crunch was music to his ears. 

The blow threw the stranger against the doorframe and then to the floor, gagging for air. Clean but heavily wrinkled clothes, worn out sneakers with brand new laces, hair that had outgrown it’s cut.. Looked like it was one of Toby’s hitchhiking college students out backpacking Europe for the summer.

Boy stepped forward and brought his bat down on the guy’s head. And then again. By the time Boy was done venting his frustration down on the intruder, the skull and brain had been pulped into a bloody jello and splattered all over the kitchen.

“Sooooo.. feel better?”

Huffing, Boy looked up to find Toby standing in the doorway, goggles pushed to the top of his head.

“Yeah. A little.”

“Cool. By the way, that was _my_ kill. Do you know how long it took me to find an American?” Toby threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “They don’t just fall out of trees anymore!” 

“Possession is nine tenths of the law!” Boy grinned as he sagged back against the fridge. Holy fuck his arms hurt even more now. “But if you really want to claim it, then he’s all yours. Him AND the mess!”

“Did you catch him?” Hoody loomed over Toby’s shoulder and peered into the kitchen. “I guess so. Jeez… where’s Eyeless? Let him deal with breakfast while Boy helps me. Don’t forget the ceiling this time Toby, that shit gets everywhere.”

Boy threw Toby a small smirk, grabbing the tool box and his bat and scurrying past him. The slap Toby gave the back of his head was totally worth it.

Toby got his revenge in a roundabout way later when he brought forth the nail gun from his room. The tedious process of hammering the wooden boards to the posts went a lot faster after that but of course, Toby had a talent for screwing up even the simple things.

One moment Boy was leaned against a fence post and yawning while he waited for Hoody to dig up some more boards... 

...the next thing he knew there was a high pitched wine and something pinched his ear.

Reaching up, Boy was flabbergasted to find he was bleeding. He turned to Toby, who had an equally startled look on his face. Toby very carefully lowered the tool to the ground.

“You SHOT me!”

“Did not! These have safety buttons for a reason! It’s unshootable!”

“You..! You..!” Boy sputtered. “HOODY!”

“Can’t I leave you guys alone for five fucking seconds without you killing each other?” Hoody sighed. He dropped an armful of boards next to the remaining hole in the fence-line. He squinted at Boy, “are you bleeding?”

“TOBY SHOT ME!”

“IT WASN’T MY FAULT!”

Hoody dragged a hand over his face. “Why do I put up with you two... Come on, let’s finish this so you guys can get out of my hair.” Hoody picked up the nail gun himself, but only to pop out the battery. “Get the hammer, you two don’t deserve the easy way.” 

Boy flipped off the pouting Toby before grabbing one of the boards. It was the last set and they would be done and Boy was going straight to fucking bed and fuck all of them. 

Showing his ear to Eyeless later, the older boy shrugged. “It’s gone clean through the cartilage, nothing I can really do about it. Just buy an earring or something when it’s healed.”

Boy made sure to snag the last box of waffles out of the freezer as he headed back to bed. Petty revenge, but it made him feel better. Weird as it was, he liked chewing on the waffles when they were still frozen anyways, they wouldn’t go to complete waste. 

Sleep… oh sweet, precious sleep. Boy was going to sleep for a _week._


	5. Shhhh

Harry startled awake, gaze roaming over the compartment and the inhabitants wildly before settling in on the newly opened door. 

Dazed with sleep, he had no idea what expression was on his face but whatever it was it made Hermione go white as a sheet, the bossy Gryffindor taking a step back.

“I.. I was looking for Neville,” she managed without too much fumbling as he stared. 

Harry blinked at her. As gears slowly started grinding towards awareness, Neville piped up- “what did you need Hermione? We’re kind of in the middle of a game here.”

They were?

Harry looked around again and this time took in that Neville had been playing poker with Ernie, Justin, and Susan. Hannah and Roger looked to be sitting out, whether by choice or because they’d lost every penny they had, Harry didn’t know. 

He vaguely recalled them trickling in one by one that morning. Ernie and Hannah had been the first to appear, then Susan. Neville had arrived eventually and allowed himself to be used as a barrier between Harry and the far more chattery Hufflepuffs.

That was how Harry had fallen asleep wedged between Neville and the window once Roger and Justin decided to pop in with their trunks and owls. Harry propped his chin on Neville’s shoulder and let his eyes droop shut. 

Oh. Hermione was still here. 

“I… and Ron.. and the others too.. We have a compartment further up the train and wanted to know if you were going to join us. To catch up.” Hermione, still spooked by Harry’s icy glare, started backing up. “Just letting you know I guess.” 

Hannah waited until the door was closed before she started giggling.

“Yunno, you are _terrifying_ when you first wake up.” Ernie tossed his cards to the floor with a sigh. “I’m out. That was the last of my allowance unless someone wants to give me a loan.”

“Ask me after this hand,” Justin muttered, staring at his cards as if they would change by sheer force of will. “He can’t win all the time, can he?”

Susan let out a very unladylike snort. “I think we should strip him, to be sure he’s not wearing any gambling charms.”

_“Susan!”_ Hannah started giggling harder, hands coming up to her face. 

Harry could feel Neville chuckling, and smiled without opening his eyes. “He’s diabolical. I think he sold his soul to the devil just to fuck with us.” He flinched a bit as Neville elbowed him in the stomach. 

“It’s almost lunch, you going to wake up yet and join us in getting fleeced?” Justin gave up and started throwing his cards at Hannah, trying to lodge them in her long blonde hair as she giggled helplessly.

Harry cracked an eye open. “Candy lady come by yet?” He didn’t want to wake up yet, he was exhausted from the never-ending chores his brothers kept coming up with.

“No. Not that anyone but Neville can afford to buy anything now,” with an accusing look at the Gryffindor. Susan crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.

“Will it make you feel better if I promise to buy everyone something off the cart?” 

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Mother always told me not to gamble,” Justin sighed. “It only leads to misery.”

Harry ignored his yearmates and leaned back into Neville’s side. Something nagged at the back of his mind as he settled back into a light doze. Something Masky had said.. But it was gone.

The next thing Harry knew was the thick scent of chocolate. He didn’t even have to open his eyes, he snapped his head forward and bit the head off the chocolate frog Neville was waving under his nose.

“The trolley came by,” Hannah informed him happily as she freed her pumpkin pasty from the packaging.

“You can sleep through us arguing over poker, exploding snap, and the sweets trolley, but Hermione makes you almost hit the ceiling?” Ernie was incredulous.

Neville stretched and rotated his arms with a relieved sigh as Harry sat up, chocolate frog hanging out of his mouth. Harry grabbed the back half of the frog and bit down hard to remove the head. 

“Sh’ d‘nt ake e.”

Harry rolled his eyes the disapproving looks from the girls. He chewed and swallowed. While snapping the legs off the frog, “she didn’t wake me, you guys did when you stopped talking and laughing and went silent. It was weird.”

From the looks Justin and Ernie exchanged, they thought he was the weird one here. But Susan’s eyes lit up. “Oh! My Aunt does that too! She’s an Auror you know. She can sleep through all kinds of noises if she knows what they are, but one noise that doesn’t make sense and she snaps wide awake!”

“I wouldn’t say Harry was wide awake…” Roger smirked over his book, “but Granger deserved it. Gryffindors suck.” 

Hannah kicked him. 

“...sorry Neville.” 

“No, they’re pretty terrible sometimes. They almost lynched me after that fight when Harry was in the infirmary. And they think you’re all nuts.”

Susan tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “They started it. ”

“You guys aren’t still going to follow me around everywhere are you..?” Harry’s voice going wary. The last week of school had been excruciating as the small group had hovered over him in concern. Even some older students had gotten in on it! Cedric had almost banned him from the running group until he was sure he was completely recovered!

“Don’t almost die and we won’t have to,” Susan informed him pertly. “Hufflepuffs stick together through thick and thin. We have to, when everyone thinks we’re the castoffs. It’s dangerous to go off alone like you do!”

Harry groaned. In the back of his head he swore he heard BEN whisper “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this!” Fuck off imaginary BEN.

“You already missed Cedric checking in,” Hannah beamed with star-struck eyes. “He’s sooo nice. And smart. And handsome.” With a happy sigh- “I’m so glad he’s in Hufflepuff.”

“...right. You want us to leave so you can change into your robes Harry? That wa-”

Justin’s question was interrupted by Susan shrieking at the top of her lungs. Roger smacked himself in the face with his book at the sudden sound, which was pretty damn funny but no one saw it because they were staring at Susan.

“YOUR HAIR! HARRY, WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?”

Harry, having all but climbed the wall he’d been so startled, was standing on the bench cushion and looking like he had no idea how he got there. The reason for Susan’s wailing was that he’d finally pushed back the hood of his sweatshirt. 

His hair a mere few months ago had been a thick mass of curls hanging halfway down his back. Susan had loved his hair, had loved working it into complicated braids and twists. It had been the most glorious hair she’d ever been allowed to play with _and he’d cut it all off._

“How COULD you?”

“Sweet Merlin Susan! You almost gave me a heart attack!” Ernie snapped. “It’s his hair, he can do what he wants with it!”

Harry ran a hand over his shorn head with a grimace. He’d almost forgotten. “It wasn’t my fucking idea, I spent years growing it out. I LIKED it long.” That Jeff also had long hair wasn’t the point dammit.

“You were forced to cut your hair? Who would do something so.. so.. monstrous!” 

Justin side-eyed her. It was just _hair._

“One of my brothers wanted to send me off with a bang, so he had the utterly brilliant idea of setting off a bunch of fucking fireworks. In the house. Nearly burned down the goddamn building right along with my hair.”

Harry had to grin. The fireworks up until a certain point had been great. The colors, the booms, it was the perfect send off.

Susan sniffled. 

Hannah reached over and patted her on the arm. “Don’t worry Susan. One of the older girls must know a way to brew hair tonic, or where to buy it. We’ll fix this this right up!”

“Shouldn’t Harry get a say in this?” Ernie asked dryly.

_“No.”_

“Why should he?”


	6. Cleanup

The classroom looked like a hurricane had blasted through it. Chairs and tables were knocked over, stuff were knocked off the walls, one of the windows were broken..

“Whoa.”

Ernie took a cautious step inside, the rest of the Hufflepuffs following him just as carefully. 

“What did the Gryffindors DO to the place?”

“Anyone see Professor Lockhart?” Hanna tried to peek around him. 

Harry was, of course, not so cautious and a lot more curious. He hopped around the shattered remains of the chandelier to get to the front of the classroom. “What the hell are these things?”

A giant cage at the front of the class was crammed full of little blue creatures, stiff and unmoving.

“Those are Cornish Pixies!”

“Explains the mess,” Susan wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, they’re pretty nasty. Cute, but nasty.”

Harry leaned in closer to the cage to get a better look. “Pixies? No relation to Tinkerbell I suppose. Why would ther-” He jerked back with a hiss as one of the pixies flung itself at Harry’s face, tiny arms clawing towards him through the bars.

One by one the ‘dead’ pixies came to life and started shrieking, buzzing around in their cage like angry budgies.

“....welp, I don’t see Lockhart anywhere, so let’s just… go. We can find a teacher and let them know that.. something happened.” Pixies may LOOK harmless but… Ernie knew better.

Hannah exchanged glances with Susan, and they both nodded. “Agreed.”

The still-hissing Harry had to be pulled away from the cage of angry pixies, but the Hufflepuffs as a whole fled before they could be somehow roped into dealing with them. They didn’t get far, running into the Gryffindors and Professor Flitwick near the stairs.

“He’s mad! He set them all loose without warning or telling us how to capture them!” Ron was whining. Seamus was rubbing the sides of his head, ears looking red and raw. 

“Honestly Ron, it wasn’t that bad! Just surprising!” Hermione’s scolding trailed off as both groups spotted each other. Harry suddenly found himself in the middle of the Badger group, his yearmates taking a protective stance.

He’d laugh if it wasn’t so fucking embarrassing. 

“Enough children, it’s too early in the year to kick up a fuss,” the tiny Professor commanded. “Gryffindors, head on to your next class. Hufflepuffs, head back to your common room for now. I’m going to see where Lockhart has run off to.”

Still the smallest in his year, Harry had to lean up on his toes to see over Roger’s shoulder but he caught sight of Neville at the back of the pack. Seeing him, Neville waved cheerfully. No time to talk though, the groups separated with a few dirty looks thrown around.

“I thought Hufflepuffs were about forgiveness and shit..” Harry muttered while keeping an eye on the retreating Gryffindors. 

“Forgive, maybe. Forget, never.” Ernie muttered back, nose in the air. “When they stop treating us as things to be stepped on, we’ll stop treating them like the barbarians they are.”

“Huh.” Nothing Harry could say to that, now could he? 

“...should we go over the DADA books? Since we’re missing class?” Hannah wondered, twirling her hair between her fingers. 

Roger groaned. “Please no. Sure he saved a few people, but sweet Merlin the ego.”

Ernie rolled his eyes in agreement. “I killed a monster, yay for dear old wonderful me, I saved all the people, but I’m so humble I don’t mind doing it, oh no I don’t care at all about all the awards I’ve won but did you know I’ve won a lot of them?” 

Susan sniffed. “My aunt says there’s no proof he’s lying, that there WERE creatures causing a mess and they DID vanish or whatever just like he says. Doesn’t make him less of an idiot though. 

“But he’s a _pretty_ idiot,” Hannah giggled to the disgust of the boys.

Harry slowly eased himself out of the group as they continued to complain about their new teacher. Sally-Anne and Zachariah were at the very back quietly talking to each other (how come they didn’t get harassed for being anti-social?) and Harry pretended to look through his school bag until they passed him.

Aaaand… clear. Harry ducked down another hallway. Jesus Christ were Hufflepuffs a clingy bunch. It’s like they hated to be alone! Always needing to know where everyone was! Sheesh.

Now. Where had Neville gone?

Harry backtracked and headed up to the second floor. They should be up in Transfiguration class, he was pretty sure. Hufflepuffs had Charms in an hour or so and that was kind of nearby. Harry was just being efficient.

He could hear very muffled talking through the door to the Cranky Old Bat’s classroom, so class had already begun. After some consideration, Harry sat down a few feet from the door and dug through his satchel looking for his sketchbook. He needed the practice with using ink anyways.

With most, if not all, of the school in class (or in the case of his yearmates, in their House Commons) it was really, really quiet. It was beautiful.

One might not think that a household of psychos would make for peaceful living, but there was only so much murdering that could happen in a single day, or week. Month. The point was to NOT draw attention so that left the group with a lot of time on their hands. Movies and video games and parkour competitions on the roof happened often but that still left a lot of time to fill.

Masky had his animals, Hoody had his gardens, Eyeless ran the household to his perfectionist and slightly anal standards. BEN played video games, Liu read, and Toby was… Toby. He roamed the countryside a lot, on foot and on bike and rarely out in his truck since he drove like a lunatic and that was not easy to hide from the neighbors.

Smile Dog chased deer, Laughing Jack spent a lot of time in his box when he wasn’t stalking Jeff, and Jeff was the one who had taught Boy how to draw in the first place.

The quietness and knowing Neville was nearby, meant Harry was enjoying himself. It wasn’t going to last long, it never did, but he could still enjoy it while it lasted dammit!

..yup. There it was. Footsteps. A very light step, almost silent. Harry wasn’t surprised to see Professor Flitwick turn the corner, though the tiny teacher was surprised to see him. 

“Mr Potter, I believe you were supposed to wait in your House Commons.”

“I’m closer to Charms here,” Harry tried widening his eyes to look innocent. He wasn’t doing anything wrong here, just sitting! Swear!

Flitwick frowned. He didn’t seem to buy it for a minute. “Come along Mr Potter. I had a few things to show you after class, but I suppose we can do that now instead.”

Harry grinned. Flitwick was the best and Harry shoved his books back into his bag without any hesitation. It was odd to be the tall one for a change but Harry brushed it off. What Flitwick lacked in height he made up for in presence- the man was truly a giant.

“What are we doing this year Professor?”

“In class we’ll be going over the the usual sort, I assume you’ve already read your textbook? Good. I will still expect you to participate with your classmates, but otherwise.. Hmm…” 

Harry looked on in interest as Flitwick searched through his desk. The top was covered in stacks of paper, the summer homework of his earlier classes. 

“Ahh, here we go. I want you to read this, and when you're done, come see me so I can set up a place for practice. _If_ you’ve kept up on your homework,” the Professor said sternly. 

“...household charms?” 

“Some of them are quite advanced. Most of them depend on your will to decide how strong or or how large of an area it covers. Perfect for practicing your control and precision.”

Aww… while Harry liked the stretchy feeling of doing new spells, like he was strengthening his muscles with weight lifting, cleaning charms just sounded stupid. And lazy. Eyeless would choke on his kidneys if all Boy had to do was point his wand and BOOM! perfectly tidy room.

Flitwick read his mind and chuckled. “Don’t worry Mr. Potter, you’ll find these challenge enough. Most of your classmates would find it very difficult to spell off the dust on a brand new book, much less the layers of filth in an abandoned classroom.”

“There are abandoned classrooms?” That sounded more like an adventure than the cleaning charms. ..wait. Harry perked up. Learning the charms would be like level-grinding before getting to the dungeon. The dungeon was always the best part with all sorts of cool stuff hidden inside. Who knows what he’d find in the forgotten rooms of a magic school?

“I’ll get right on it Professor!” 

Concern flicked over the teacher’s face for a moment (Harry really needed to work on NOT sounding evil when he got cheerful) but really, what harm could Harry get up to with cleaning spells? Harry could even help a few people out. Ron was always wondering around looking like a complete slob.. A few scouring charms would do him good.

Maybe not do his _skin_ any good, but that was a minor detail.


	7. High as a Kite

The astronomy tower was the tallest point of Hogwarts. It had to be in order for students to get a clear view of the night sky. It was also supposedly off-limits to third year students and down, but when did that ever stop Harry Potter?

Neville had to note that there didn’t seem to be anything to actually keep students out of the tower other than the verbal warning. Looking around the inner part of the tower gave no sign of his friend, and when he circled the outer platform there was still no sign of anything or anyone.

“...Harry?”

It was one of Harry’s favorite places to hide, but not the only one. Perhaps Neville should try the back hall on the fourth floor. The greenhouses? Those were off limits to students too if not in class or the club but again...

“Hey, up here!”

Neville’s head jerked up and he starred in silent astonishment. 

Not content with being hundreds of feet off the ground with a sturdy stone wall between him and falling to his death, Harry had somehow managed to get himself up onto the roof and looked to be enjoying himself as he lounged back on his hands. 

“Come on up!”

Neville squeaked. After he cleared his throat, “how did you even get up there?”

“Climbed. Need a hand?”

On the one side, Neville knew if he declined Harry wouldn't think too badly of him. On the other side, he knew Harry would be disappointed. “...yeah…” trying not to whimper. 

Harry grabbed the edge of the roof, the gutter, and to the horror of Neville’s stomach, he rolled himself forward in some sort of somersault to land on his feet on the platform.

Oh sweet Merlin.

Harry didn’t even pause, he laced his fingers together and crouched down. “Come on then, step on my hands and I’ll give you a boost. The gutter is really sturdy so just pull yourself up.”

Neville swallowed hard. Last chance to say no. He sucked in a deep breath and stepped into Harry’s hands. A hop and a shove and a desperate latching onto the stone gutter, Neville wriggled his way up onto the roof. He wrapped both arms around the heavy gargoyle and prayed for no winds to come.

Harry just laughed. He backed up almost against the outer wall that kept people from dying and ran forward. He sprang upwards at the last moment and to Neville’s astonishment was able to pull himself up with ease. Neville always forgot Harry was a lot stronger than he looked.

“You.. uhh… do this.. often?”

“Yeah I like it up here. I used to sit on the roof at home all the time. And you know what, when people come snooping to make sure no one is trespassing, no one ever looks up. Lots of people come up here to kiss though, that’s the only bad part.”

Neville wasn’t looking down, wasn’t looking anywhere near where ‘down’ was. 

 

“H-Hannah said you walked out of DADA, when Lockhart tried to make you act out the hag from his book.”

“If that fucking twit thinks he can waste my time to show off his fucking heroism, he’s got another thing coming. He’s lucky I didn't bust him in the jaw last week when he jumped at my back!”

Going by the red glow, Harry felt very, very strongly about this. Neville could understand. If they were going over the spells Lockhart had used in the books it would be one thing, but this was more like kiddie theater than a defence class.

“But… to just walk out? Did you get a detention?”

Harry shrugged, leaning back on his hands again and crossing his ankles. He looked perfectly happy to be sitting on a slick, slanting roof with nothing to hang onto. Neville could feel his heart in his throat every time a breeze wandered by.

“Probly. I didn’t stick around to find out. I did go straight to Professor Sprout about it though, so that will help. I stated my case and explained what he was doing and NOT doing and how it’s going to make every single one of us fail our fucking exams at the end of the year. With that done, I look more like a responsible student worried about my grades and not a trouble-maker skipping class. ”

“And..She believed you? About the grades I mean.”

“Eh. I don’t think she likes him any more than I do and this may give her the excuse to DO something about it. She does want to talk to the others first and see what they think, maybe even discuss the matter with the whole house. But whatever happens, I’m not going back. I spent last year in detention I’ll do it again if I have to.”

“Wow.”

“Mhm.”

It wasn’t too bad up here, once Neville got past the whole falling-to-his-messy-death part. It was cold, yeah, but he’d brought his cloak in case Harry wanted to stay outside. He just thought that.. You know.. It would be on the safe and secure and protected platform.

Still wasn’t about to let go of the gargoyle. 

“What will you do about DADA if you don’t go to class?” Neville wondered out loud. If Harry was allowed to skip.. Would other kids be allowed? If everyone skipped DADA, would Lockhart be fired? 

No, the teachers would probably see that future problem and tell Harry to either go to class or fail. And this being Harry.. Harry was the most stubborn person Neville had ever met.

“Read ahead and study on my own, like with my extra Charms stuff. It’s way easier that way too, since I can go as fast or as slow as I need to. Not like anyone at home cares what sort of grade some old teacher _thinks_ I should have.”

All Harry had to do was NOT get expelled, nothing more really. Maybe learn a few useful things. Plant some literary seeds so an Eldritch Horror could wiggle his way into a brand new society.. Harry grinned quietly. He’d left one of his highly battered journals in the library earlier. It was going to be interesting to see who would pick it up...

But none of those things required him to stick around a classroom where learning was ignored in favor of the teacher stroking his own ego. Which reminded Harry-

If Lockhart did anything more than merely flirt with Harry’s Hufflepuffs, Harry was going to have words with him. If Lockhart was lucky it would be ONLY words.

“NOBODY cares?”

“Hmm?” Oh right. “Well.. they’d care if they thought I was being lazy and loafing about for nine months. As long as I’m learning _something_ useful they don’t care how I go about it. If I told them I let a teacher manhandle me in class for absolutely no reason, they’d be more upset about that than if I failed.”

Well if he put it that way..

“I think I’ll write to my Gran. If I tell her that Professor Lockhart, the guy supposed to be teaching us how to defend ourselves, is only making us act out his books.. She’ll probably want to do something about it. She’s really, really big on protections.”

To say the least. The Longbottom Manor was under so many wards that walking onto the property was like walking through a wall of jello.

“Your Grandmother is an.. interesting.. person,” Harry allowed grudgingly. 

“Yeah. Umm… Harry?”

“Hmm?”

“How do I get down?”

“Jump.”

As Neville realized _Harry wasn’t joking,_ he felt the blood drain from his face. “Umm..”

It took Harry almost half an hour to coax Neville down from the roof- “Just grab the edge and swing your legs over, it’s only seven feet!” -and when reminding Neville he was a wizard- “No don’t cast the feather-light charm the wind will blow you away!” -the Gryffindor finally made it down to the platform without Neville losing his complete nerve and Harry his patience. 

“I’m teaching you to wall climb. Do you know what Parkour is?”

“I am never, ever following you up to the roof ever again. I don’t care what it is you’re doing or what I have to do to avoid it, never again. Ever. ”

Harry’s head tilted a bit to the side. “Ever?”

“There is nothing, NOTHING, you can tempt me with to get me back on that roof!”

“Nothing? Huh. Hey, have you seen your toad lately?”

“Not since.. Don’t you dare.”

Harry shrugged a shoulder and flashed a grin. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just asking if you’ve seen your warty little pet. So suspicious Nev, what did I ever do to deserve it?”

Neville glared but didn’t bother listing the dozens, if not hundreds, of things Harry had done. “I am NOT going back up there, so leave Trevor alone!”

“Fine, fine.. Not like I can catch the fucker anyways.”


	8. Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

“So it’s a minute per inch of hair..”

Susan poured over the instructions again, carefully reading each word. It would be awful if she messed it up and made Harry go bald. What if he never grew hair again? She’d never be able to forgive herself. 

“How long was your hair before, Harry? To your waist right?”

“Not even close,” Harry sighed. “It was barely halfway down my back. Please don’t try to turn me into fucking Rapunzel. And be careful around my ear! It’s still healing!”

“I’m not going to goop your ear! Honestly. And who’s Rapunzel?”

“Girl who gets locked up in a damn tower all her life with hair a mile long. Her kidnapper uses her hair to climb in and out of the tower to bring her food.”

“Uhh.. ok.” Susan shook her head and returned to the important matters at hand. “So a minute an inch and they recommend doing it longer rather than shorter just to be sure. ‘cause to do this again would be very, very expensive and bad for your hair.”

If she was going to do this, she was going to do it _right._ Which is why she had found a measuring tape and was carefully counting the inches from the top of Harry’s head down to the middle of his back… and a little more.

“Three feet!” with a happy chirp.

“Give me that!”

Hannah started giggling as Ernie took the measuring tape from Susan, doing the measuring himself because honestly the girl just could not help from going too far.

“Twenty-eight inches.” Ernie handed back the tape with a roll of his eyes. 

“No, it has to be three feet if not longer,” Susan insisted. “Don’t you remember how curly his hair was? If we measure by how long it was when curly, and then grow it to that, his hair will bounce up to his shoulders! If it’s too long we can trim it down.”

“She’s right,” Hannah piped in, “too bad we don’t know how long his hair was if straightened… Harry, for the sake of precision, you must let us work with your hair more often.”

Justin, sprawled on his stomach across the bed, watched Susan and Ernie bicker over the time with amusement. “Starting to have second thoughts yet?” 

Harry looked up from his book, hand making vague swishes in the air as he practiced the wand movements. God, he hated his wand. “I figure if they get too irritating, I’ll just threaten to cut all of it off again. If it’s this easy to grow back, I’ll do it too.”

“You wouldn’t! After all the trouble I went through to find something that won’t rot after a couple days?” Susan rolled up her sleeves and out of the way. She had already put her own hair up into a bun and now she was fully prepared to begin no matter how ungrateful Harry was. 

“I would, it’s still _my_ hair no matter how much you scream. But as long as you don’t assume you can attack me with a brush any time you chose, we’re golden.”

Susan glared at the side of his head even as she unscrewed the jar. “I’ll braid it for you in the morning for classes and once a week I get to try a new hairstyle.”

“....eh. That’s reasonable I guess. But no complaints if I unbraid it and only if I’m not busy.”

“Deal.” Susan commenced with pouring the whole jar over Harry’s head. The pale blue goop had a texture like maple syrup and oozed slowly. Susan massaged the potion into Harry’s scalp and covered every scant inch of his curls with it. While of course taking care to avoid his ears. The earring was rather dashing the girls thought, a shiny black plug going through the top. A little muggle perhaps, but even that had a sort of charm to it.

Hannah pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles as Harry slowly slumped into complete relaxation. She’d later insist that Harry had purred under the administration, like a cute little kitten.

Justin checked his watch. “Three feet, roughly forty minutes.. I hope you realize that dinner is in an hour? And that he’s going to need a shower?”

Susan flapped a goopy blue hand at him. “That’s plenty of time, don’t rush me! Um… Ernie? Help. I think he fell asleep. No, don’t fall over! Harry!”

Ernie sighed, a great big heavy sigh because his life was such a chore, but hopped off his bed. Susan’s messy hands meant she couldn't really grab Harry except by the top of his head, but Ernie was able to lean Harry sideways against a bedpost.

“Nah ‘shleep.”

“Yeah? Then open your eyes.”

Ernie wasn't phased by Harry’s rude hand gestures by now, and merely sighed. He stayed nearby to keep Harry upright as Susan trotted off to wash her hands. Eventually she came back with a towel, wrapping it gently around Harry’s head to keep the goo on his hair and not on the bed. 

“We should remember this next time he gets cranky. A few pats on the head and he’s out.” 

Justin rolled over onto his back and put his arms under his head. “My Aunt has a cat just like that. Hates everybody and will scratch if you get too close.. unless you manage to scratch her behind the ears. Then she melts into a puddle and loves you forever.”

“He’s a lot less cranky now that Professor Lockhart ignores him in class,” Hannah pointed out cheerfully. “I can’t say I miss the theatrics, but I do miss seeing Lockhart’s expressions every time Harry would glare at him. Oh if only I could make my hair look that healthy and glossy..”

“Class is certainly a lot more boring now that we just read… But what is it with girls and _hair_?” Ernie whined. With Harry curled up on the bed with a turban, he could now rejoin Hannah perched on the edge of his bed. “It’s hair! It’s dead strings that hang from your scalp, that uses up time and effort to look respectable even when it’s _short._ I’d shave my head if even THAT didn’t take daily maintenance.”

“You’re just mad you don’t have awesome hair,” Susan observed. She tossed her long, summery gold, perfectly straight, hair over her shoulder. Lighter than Hannah’s, though Hannah had some wave to hers which apparently evened them out.. somehow?.

“It’s _hair,_ ” Ernie muttered.

“We don’t want to be late for the feast though, it’s Halloween! I’ve been smelling pumpkin pie all day! Should we change now and be ready to shove him into the bathroom when it’s time?”

“That reminds me.. Who wants to be the one to wake him?”

“S’ill nah ‘sleep.”

“Keep telling yourself that Harry.”

Technically, they weren’t late to dinner… too much. Sure it started half an hour ago but who really expected every student in school to be exactly on time? It was fashionable to be a little late anyways. And Harry was very fashionable now!

“I am finding the biggest fucking spider in the dungeon and putting it in your bed,” Harry growled under his breath and sopping wet mane.

“You can’t, boys aren’t allowed in the girls dorms,” Susan beamed. She trotted behind him with a handful of his hair in hand and was trying to rake a comb through the mess. So it was a liiiittle bit past the middle of his back. It was still wet though, so they had no idea how much would be lost in the curling! Harry was just being a whiny baby about it.

Harry glared. Amazing how all the scissors had vanished while he was out washing the potion from his head. His hair was down to his ass and if that wasn’t a sign that he should strangle Susan with it, he didn’t know what was. 

“All I need is a knife Susan. Or a torch. I am not keeping it this long!”

“I’ll give you a haircut after dinner you big baby! And you’re welcome!”

In a moment of self-preservation, Ernie and Justin seated themselves to either side of Harry. This forced Susan and Hannah to literally get out of Harry’s hair and sit opposite of them. It was the glowing red eye, the boys still got twitchy when that happened. The cowards.

“What took you munchkins so long? We were about to send a search party,” one of the prefects scolded. 

Ernie jerked a thumb towards the two girls. “Bad hair day.”

Someone reached over and poked their wand at Harry’s head. Before he could get himself worked up for a really good snarl, he felt his head get a lot lighter and less cold. Reaching back, he found his hair was almost completely dry.

“Thanks!”

“You’re welcome,” Cedric shaking his head. 

Harry pushed the heavy mass back over his shoulder and let it all hang down his back for now. Kill Susan later, he was starving. 

“You guys are going to be just as much trouble this year as you were last year aren’t you,” sighed the other prefect. “Just.. try to keep it down please? No more brawls.”

The small group puffed up indignantly. Well, except Harry, he was busy munching through a pile of sliced ham smothered under gravy. “It’s not OUR fault the other houses are full of bullies and scoundrels! They targeted us first! ”

“Ignore them. The year has been nice and quiet so far, I want to keep it that way.”

“Well now you’ve just jinxed it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept debating if this would count as a real chapter but.. well.. I thought it was hilarious XD


	9. Drifting in the Wind

Ahh, the weekend.

Harry loved weekends. A nice, long stretch of classroom-free time to do as one wished. Why a boarding school would HAVE weekends was sort of silly, but nice to know the teachers were looking out for the mental stability of the students being held hostage. Except for the huge piles of homework that took up all that wonderful free time.. If you did it that is. 

Anyways.

“You’ve got two options Nev. You can climb the tree and get over your fear of heights, or you can go back into the castle and listen to Ron rant about how I’m the fucking devil himself and then end up in detention when you punch the shit out of him.”

“You’re kind of a jerk sometimes Harry.” Neville looked up at the monster tree and went pale.

“Family tradition,” Harry replied with a cheerful grin. 

It was dark in the forbidden forest, but not that dark. Just the regular foresty kind of dark when it was the middle of the day but the sunlight was blocked by the trees. It was a good forest, he couldn’t see why it was forbidden for students to enter (other then everything fun was always banned by those in charge) and Harry liked to skulk around when he felt homesick.

The tree, the chosen one itself, was not that bad of a tree either. Sturdy branches splayed out in easy-to-grasp layers, none of them starting too high off the ground. It was more like a ladder than a tree, Neville would have to try pretty hard to fall out of it.

“What’s wrong with being afraid of heights? It’s a very healthy fear. Like being afraid of.. of.. Snape. The fear makes sure you avoid the situations where they might hurt you.”

“Just get in the fucking tree. How am I supposed to teach you how to wall-climb if you won’t work with me here? This is just the first baby-step!”

Neville held back the obvious answer of NOT teaching him how to get into dangerous situations, as Harry had no understanding on what counted as a ‘dangerous situation’. “One of these days I’m going to die because of you.”

“Prob’ly.”

Neville side-eyed the Hufflepuff. There had been no hesitation in that simple reply.

Harry pulled his robe off over his head. Before Neville could start squawking he was quickly reminded that Harry chose to wear Muggle clothes under his uniform. It was a little cold in just a t-shirt and ripped jeans but it was too much of a hassle to fit a hoodie under a robe. Braid tucked inside his shirt and Harry was ready to begin.

You know, someone should make a hoodie robe. That would be cool. Or weird. 

“What happened to exploring the dungeons? Safely underground with no danger of falling out of the sky..?”

Harry huffed, losing his patience. “Remember how I just said it was a family tradition to be an asshole?”

“Oh god…”

“Yeah, they also believe in sink or swim.” Harry felt like being generous and pulled out his wand to give Neville a visible warning. He didn’t really need his wand for such a simple spell, but damn were the teachers insistent on him keeping it near. “Last chance to go punch Ron.” 

“You wouldn’t!”

“Wingardium Leviosa!”

Harry was proud of him, even as Neville flailed in the air until neatly deposited a couple yards up the tree, he didn’t scream. A high pitched whine could easily be attributed to some sort of bird.

“Harry, you.. You… jerk! Stop laughing!”

Wand tucked away, Harry most assuredly did not skip up to the tree but he did start climbing it until he was level with Neville. “Admit it, this is all your own fault. You could have gone inside and listened to the Gryffindors rant about how I’m the Heir of Slytherin and want to kill all the Muggleborn and cats. And I LIKE cats.”

“I don’t want to get sent home for killing Ron!” Well, for hurting Ron. Maybe a few hexes.

Harry smirked. “Just cuz’ you don’t _like_ the option doesn’t mean it’s not an option.”

Neville peeked down at the ground. It was closer than the ground had been when on the roof.. And if he fell out of the tree he was more likely to get broken bones from hitting all the tree branches on the way down. 

“Come on!”

Wait, Harry wanted him to go higher? Why were they friends again? Oh yeah, because Harry respected Neville’s opinions and cheery outlook on life. “I hate you..” Neville muttered.

“Lies. You fucking adore me. Come on, I’ll teach you how to do the severing charm.” Harry climbed higher, making it almost 20 feet in the air before the branches started to feel a little thin. “See? Hardly any distance at all!”

 _Gryffindors are brave, Gryffindors are brave, Gryffindors are brave._ Braced with this mental chant, Neville reached up and grabbed the next branch. And then the next. Never once looked down at the ground but kept climbing because.. Because…

Neville was so busy thinking, that he forgot to worry about how high he was. He blinked at Harry who was lazily waving his wand at some leaves and cutting them free. 

“Last year, I followed you all around the dungeons and dodged Snakes and Snape. This year I’m climbing to impossible heights in places that will get us in some serious trouble. What are we doing next year, exploring the lake?”

“...think we could?”

“Oh Merlin..”

“So I’ve been thinking about this Heir of Slytherin thing,” Hary started off happily. “Does inheritance by combat count? Ron may actually have a point to his rants if it does, having defeated the snakey bastard as an infant and all.”

“...so to explore the lake, we’d have to look up breathing charms. Do you know how to swim? That’s a pretty important part to the whole matter. And heating charms.”

Harry poked at Neville with his wand. “I’m serious! I don’t see why it would be so bad. Think if I asked the Goblins at the bank they’d give me something old and cool to inherit?”

“Salazar Slytherin is known for loving only purebloods and tried to wipe out the muggleborn. He’s not a good role model!”

Harry poked him again. “I will push you out of this damn tree. Everyone has their quirks! He was ALSO known to be very clever and good friends with Mr. Gryffindor himself. People get weird in their old age, poor guy just wanted the new kids to get off his lawn.”

“His lawn?”

“Nevermind. Just because someone splashes a few words on the wall and petrifies a cat for a Halloween prank, doesn’t mean there’s an evil Dark Lord out to fuck with the students. That’s just stupid. Ron is certainly showing how brave he is in jumping to conclusions without any proof.”

Oh Ron.. the whole Weasley family was just riveting. The oldest Weasley who loved rules, the middle Weasleys who loved pranks, and Ron who loved yelling. ...Oh and the baby Weasley who skulked about almost as suspiciously as Harry. 

The curse of being the youngest in a large family, Harry could sympathise. He was also pretty sure he saw her with one of his beat-up journals too. That ought to be amusing sometime soon.

The tree swayed gently as a gust of wind came through. The leaves made a pretty SHHHHH sound and Harry almost missed the unhappy squeak. Poor guy, Neville had wrapped his arms around the tree trunk like a baby koala.

So Harry poked him. And poked him again until Neville cracked an eye open. “Do you know what you get when you cross a tabby cat with a lemon tree?”

“No?”

“A sour puss.”

“...no. Just no.”

Harry grinned. “Did you know I can chop a tree down just by looking at it?” When Neville winced in anticipation, “it’s true! I saw it with my own eyes!”

“I hate you.”

“We already discussed this. You love me,” Harry reminded him cheerfully. “But guess what?”

“You’re psychotic?”

“Hardy har. For that I might just leave you up here.”

Neville looked down. Gulped. “You’re the kindest of Hufflepuffs. The most Hufflepuff ever to be.. Hufflepuffed. A shining beacon of Hufflepuff loyalty and love.”

“Now you’re just being fucking rude,” Harry scowled.

Neville would never understand Harry’s mood swings, he just hoped he could continue to keep up with them. “I thought you were going to show me the severing charm? We aren’t supposed to cover that for another couple of months.”

“Read ahead like I do and you’d get to the good stuff a lot sooner.”

“Says the teacher’s pet!”

“Hey! What did I just say about being fucking rude?”

“So? What are you going to do about it?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. It was the only warning Neville got. 

Don’t worry, Harry didn’t let him fall too far down. Anyways, the tree branches would have caught him if Harry hadn’t.


	10. Player Three

The library was a quiet, serene space for students to study and read under the heavy hand of the Librarian, Madam Pince. Students tiptoed past the bookshelves so as to not awaken the dragon from her desk, keeping their chatter to a low murmur. And their complaints.

“Stupid Gryffindors. As if the Heir of Slytherin would be an insane Hufflepuff. It’s like the Weasley's pride themselves in their lack of intelligence.”

“It could be worse Malfoy, You could be on Potter’s bad side. Even more than usual I mean,” Blaise Zabini smirked with a short glance over the blonde’s shoulder. He pulled a book from the shelf and checked the chapter index. 

“Why would I care what that.. that.. _Abomination_ thought of me?” Draco snapped back. He didn’t even look to see if the book he snatched was the right one, just grabbed it and turned. And found himself almost nose-to-nose with one Harry Potter. 

“I’m insane AND an abomination?” Harry bared his teeth in a wide grin. “You’re so sweet.” 

“Yes, that’s our Draco Malfoy, the sweetest in the bunch. Please kill him first.”

A disappointment as usual, the blonde had gone pale as milk and only managed a token squeak as he stared down into Harry’s green/red eyes. 

“I’m not going to kill anyone-” 

“Pity.”

“-but I’ll take that into consideration if I do need to.”

Harry couldn’t help but drop the ‘grin’ and actually smile at the dark skinned Slytherin, because hey this was the sort of banter he missed. Maybe the Slytherins were actually worth talking to.

If they weren’t Draco.

Harry made a swift change in plans. He implemented them by putting his hand on Draco’s chest and shoving him away. “Go do your homework while your betters talk. Shoo,” complete with a little wave of his hand. God he loved being able to do that...

Blaise watched Draco’s face flushed a bright red and he puffed up with indignation. Harry gave him a Look Blaise had only ever seen his Mother use on uppity reporters, and just like they had, Draco went a sickly green and scuttled off.

“I would dearly love to know how you managed to put the fear of Merlin into that boy. He’s intolerable at the best of times. Just wait till he tells his father.” 

Harry laughed. “Maybe I’ll show you one day.” He snatched the book from Blaise’s hands. “Charms homework? Great. Let’s go talk about Charms and Chambers and secrets. 

Blaise tucked his hands against the small of his back and strolled after Harry deeper into the library. Worried? Not Blaise. A year of watching the Hufflepuffs had given him some ideas on how to approach the boy AND he’d gotten some good tips from his mother. If anyone knew how to work with difficult people, it was Lady Zabini.

Of course, since Harry had approached him that changed a few things. Just slightly.

“Can I say I’m a big fan on how you handled yourself at that fiasco of a dueling club?”

“Hmm? Why?”

“Not many people would dare to flout a talent like _that_ in front of such a large group, especially one seen as so.. Dark.” Blaise would forever cherish the look of outright disbelief on Snape’s face. It had been amazing. It was even better, or so Blaise had been told, then when Harry had sauntered into Potions with short hair and looking like the reincarnation of James Potter come back to haunt them.

Lockhart’s face however, had been.. confusing. 

Harry just rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to let it bite Justin, what kind of Hufflepuff do you think I am? Besides, it was just a snake. Not like I tamed a dragon or anything.” Harry thought they were far enough- nobody had been in any of the aisles he’d passed so it was clear. “So how many Slytherins are convinced I’m the Dark Lord now?”

“Now? You adorable poppet. Most of us in the Slytherin House have been certain about that since the beginning of last year.”

“Last year?” Harry frowned, trying to remember what he’d done last year. He remembered sleeping a lot.. Going to detention. So many detentions. “You mean the papers?” Wait. Rewind. “ _Poppet_?” 

What the fuck?

“Excuse me, I meant terrifying Dark Lord.” Blaise tapped his cheek, just under his right eye, “the red eye had more people convinced than you’d think. The fact it glows when you’re upset is pretty damning for a society that believes in symbolism and signs. Then there’s your attitude...”

Harry squinted. Should he be upset? Flattered? He had no idea. Upsetly-flattered? Blaise was looking pleased with himself though and that was enough to make Harry suspicious. “What’s wrong with my attitude?” he finally demanded.

“Absolutely nothing. If you wanted people to think you’re the Heir Apparent to a Dark Lord and wish to see wizarding society ground beneath your heel that is. Could I recommend a bit more subtlety if that’s not the case? Or if it is?”

“..I’m not sure if I like you, or hate you.” Harry frowned up at the taller boy, because everyone was taller than him. Half of this years Firsties were taller than him. “But you sound more intelligent that most of the kids I talk to here. So what’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry, I don’t spill all my secrets on a first meeting.” 

“Fair enough.” Harry held his frown for a moment longer, before he lifted up the charms book he was holding hostage. “Back to the original topic then. Chamber of Secrets, why is this so terrible?”

“Dead children tend to make for a tense atmosphere.”

“No one has died..” Yet.

Blaise echoed his unspoken thought- “ _Yet._ But that could change soon. All anyone knows is that Salazar Slytherin hid a monster somewhere in the castle in a secret room. It’s been in there for over a thousand years, so if it’s still alive it must be powerful. It was intended, as far as the stories go, to kill the Muggleborn to keep the bloodlines pure.”

“A thousand year old creature?”

Blaise shrugged. “ _Supposedly_ the Chamber was opened a few decades ago. The Gameskeeper was given the blame for the incident of a girl dying but..”

“But?”

“If anyone truly believes that man is the Heir to Slytherin and capable of setting loose the monster I’ll eat my wand. Therefore, it is my opinion that either the Chamber was never opened or Hagrid was framed.”

Harry rolled this over in his mind a few times. “How do you know all this? Neville didn’t even know this much and he was there when Hermione interrogated Binns.” 

“Zabini’s collect information. It’s a.. Family hobby.”

Ahh yes, blackmail. When done correctly, it was truly an art form. “Good hobby to have. Now. How can I help you Mister Zabini?” Blaise had passed along a lot of information, Harry could afford to be generous. 

“Well…”

Harry left the library feeling a little more armed and forewarned and a lot more cheerful. The Gryffindors thought he was Satan Incarnate and wanted him out of the school. The Slytherins thought he was Satan Incarnate and wanted his good grace. Except Draco. Draco was speshul. Nothing at all to be worried about, everything was pretty much going as usual.

Blaise waited until Harry was out of sight before slumping against the bookcase.

Sweet merciful Merlin he felt like a wrung-out towel. His mother had been right, confidence was the key to everything. Though Harry was much more naive than Blaise had assumed he would be (how did someone so famous grow up to be THAT flippant about rumours?) but Blaise could work with this. 

Better to make nice with someone BEFORE they realized the power they held.

A few deep breaths later and Blaise was ready to get back to the open area of the library. He was mildly amused to find Draco actually working on his essay for charms, sulking at a table he’d bullied from a set of Firstie Ravenclaws.

“Well you’ve certainly burnt down _that_ bridge, didn't you Malfoy?”

“Shut up Zabini. What do you even think you’re doing? Just wait till I tell my father about this!” the blonde hissed. “You will not get away with making me look like a fool!”

“Yeah? Do you plan on also telling him how you’ve pissed off Potter to the point he hates you more than the Weasleys? He likes to fight with them at least, _you_ get sent away like a naughty toddler. How’s your pride feeling these days?”

“Piss off!”

Blaise shook his head. “Your funeral. I’ll make sure to send some lovely flowers when you do something even more stupid than usual and he takes your head off.” 

“He can’t hurt me, I’M A MALFOY!”

“SHHHHH!” hissed the Librarian from the front of the room.


	11. A Bludgeoning

If Neville had been in a slightly better mood, he probably would have found the whole situation a lot funnier. Sitting on a borrowed broom next to the Slytherin Quidditch Captain made Harry look absolutely _tiny_. Like a little manic-eyed doll getting lessons from a mountain troll. 

Which.. was absolutely what was going on right now, honestly.

_Harry_ at least had been thrilled to receive a note from the older boy, offering to give him Quidditch lessons. He hadn’t even blinked at how bad it would look for him to be seen making friends with the Snake house. Why should he care? He wanted to be a Beater! The Hufflepuff team was too busy to teach a beginner, and if they taught Harry they’d have to teach everyone else who wanted to play.. It just wasn’t feasible, Cedric had explained with an apologetic smile. 

Neville had the feeling that Cedric (and the rest of the team) would have said something much, much different if they’d known about the offer made by Captain Flint, and not just because of the team rivalry. Nothing anyone could do about it now of course. Harry was in the air and Neville was sitting in the stands because he’d be damned if he left Harry alone and surrounded by a bunch of Snakes even if they WERE falling over themselves trying to make him happy.

Like Blaise. The Slytherin was all but stalking Harry lately in an effort to be useful. 

Neville frowned harder as the mentioned boy chuckled. Harry, small as he was, kept getting pushed around by the wind every time he stopped to watch the rest of the team. It wasn’t a problem while he was moving, but Flint had to keep grabbing the front of his broom to keep him steady when they paused to talk. And being November, it was _very_ windy. And cold.

Marcus Flint, big-boned and muscular and known for his brutal cheating during games, was patiently explaining the various terms used in play. The other members of the squad were practicing as usual and while he occasionally screamed at them for being useless idiots-

(“ _Malfoy stop playing with your hair and find the damn Snitch!”_ was the most memorable.)

-he was mostly focused on Harry and showing him the proper way to hold his bat. What angle to use to make the bludger go a particular way. There was only one bludger loose on the field and between two real players and Harry, it was being run ragged. Harry was doing a lot better than when they had started, so Flint actually seemed to be a fairly decent teacher…? 

Neville didn’t like it. Not one bit. They were up to something. Blaise was especially up to something since he was the one who had convinced Flint to make the offer.

Harry, maddeningly, had just brushed off the suspicious complaints. “Of course they’re fucking plotting! That’s what they’re known for! But so far they’ve not tried to attach any strings or make me promise anything in return. Until that part happens I’m going to take whatever goodies come my way and have fun with it. After all, MY team was too busy.” He sounded oddly miffed.

“I’m sure they’d have made time if they knew you were going to get lured out by the Slytherins.”

Harry grinned toothily. “You’re so adorable when you’re sulking.”

Neville had thrown an apple at him for that. Hannah had recently started to point out how cute Neville was these days, and Neville blushed red as a tomato each and every time she batted her pretty blue eyes at him with a giggle. Harry had of course found this a delightful new way to torment Neville and brought it up relentlessly. But he’d stopped trying to make Neville climb trees so there was that in exchange for the mortifying comments.

Though sometimes he wondered... just a little bit... if Harry would still be amused if Hannah had been serious with her flirting. Or if in the future became serious. She was an awfully pretty girl. Neville didn’t... He wouldn’t exactly _mind_ the flirting, but Harry would. He definitely would. Neville couldn’t see Harry being happy with anyone if Neville decided to go on a date. Unless.. uhh..

They were all far too young to be dating anyways. Neville shouldn’t even be considering it. Nope. That was something for the future and no need to drive himself crazy wondering about it.

From the corner of his eye he could see Blaise turn to look at him curiously, probably wondering why Neville’s face had gone red.

A cracking sound and a whoosh of air and prior experience had Neville diving to the floor of the stand. Blaise let out a truly un-manly and very surprised shriek as the Bludger whipped past his head where Neville had previously been sitting. 

_Everyone_ was fair game in Harry’s mind.

Neville, kneeling between benches, took a page from Harry’s book and flipped him off as he hovered a few yards away from the box. A returning rush of air kept Neville low to the ground and this time Blaise joined him. Flint smirked as he whacked the ball back into the field and towards his team-mates, following after it.

“That would be so many fouls in a real game..!” Neville shouted. 

“Too bad for you that we’re not playing a real fucking game then!” Harry called back. He flew in closer and climbed off the broom onto the railing, and then to the floor of the stand. “I’m done for the day. Fuck do my arms hurt. I should start lifting weights or something I guess.”

Harry tossed the broom to Blaise, the real owner, and stretched out his arms before he started chattering again. “I want a broom. My own I mean. In fact, I want one just like Malfoy’s so that I can watch him sulk about it. He’s not very good at finding the little gold ball is he? It’s been hovering around the Teacher’s Box for the last fifteen minutes.”

Harry fidgeted impatiently for both boys to get back to their feet, awkwardly in Blaise’ case considering the broom. “Do they make catalogues for brooms? Are they customizable? For that matter, are there catalogues for school supplies and that shit? Cause it would be a million fucking times easier if I could just order the stupid things rather than facing the crowds at Diagon. Who wants to waste all their time on fucking school supplies?”

Neville grinned to himself as he realized that Blaise was waiting for Harry to stop talking before he tried to answer. Fat chance on that. Once Harry got started, it could take a long time before he stopped for breath, _especially_ when he was excited about something. 

Neville suddenly felt better.

As expected, Harry chattered non-stop all the way to the bottom of the stairs, feet thumping with every step thanks to his boots. Steel-toes, he called them? Obviously because of the heavy metal in the toe of the boot. Apparently they’d been a nuisance to even find in his size and Harry refused to give them up for anything.

Neville trailed after him, an uneasy twinge going through his stomach as he recalled the time someone had tried to push them off the stairs. He ignored it in favor of interrupting Harry with- “I like going to Diagon.”

“Yeah yeah, it’s a great place, blah blah ice cream and shit. When people aren't running you over in the crowd! I can’t wait ‘till puberty starts, I want to be taller dammit! I’m tired of being the shortest fucking kid everywhere I go! Even Captain Flint says I’d have to grow about a foot taller before anyone would take me serious as a Beater. And that’s when he’s trying to suck up! ALL of my brothers are fucking taller than me and-”

“Could be worse Harry,” Neville happily interjected again, listening to Blaise pant for breath behind them. He needed to join the jogging club. Wait no, he didn’t want to see _more_ of the Slytherin. Neville was glad the Slytherin hadn’t started trying to edge in during lunch too.

“Oh Yeah? What’s worse than being the shortest person in the whole fucking castle?”

“You could be the shortest person _after_ going through puberty. Right now, you have some hope.”

“Fuck you Nev.”

They both paused at the foot of the stands and looked up. Blaise was looking a little red in the cheeks and out of breath but he wasn’t too far behind. “You play cards Blaise?”

“Uh.. yeah.. Umm..” Blaise wheezed.

“Good. We do card games on the fourth floor, way in the back past the troll paintings. I’ll let you know when. Mostly Poker so bring money, or candy. We really should see about making it into a real club. Think Flitwick would go for it? Maybe if we left out the fact we play Poker.. Which reminds me-” and Harry was off again, striding towards the school. “Hurry up Nev, we’re late!”

It wasn’t even a question, Neville left Blaise behind and scampered after him. “We are? What are we late for?”

“Susan and Hannah want to visit Justin in the infirmary. The teachers seem to be half and half on if he can hear us,” Harry rolled his eyes, “but just in case the girls want everyone to stop by and let him know how things are going. We should be on time if we go straight to there. I hope Hannah doesn’t start crying again, he’s not dead or anything, though he’s gunna be pissed when they finally wake him up and he’s missed so many classes..”

Harry bulldozed his way through the random clumps of students. He didn’t really have to do any pushing, they tended to jump out of his way looking like they’d seen a werewolf once they registered who was coming down the hallway. 

“Jumpy fuckers aren’t they?” he muttered at Neville. “Where’s the fun in freaking people out if they’ve already done all the work?”

“Well it does let you focus on other things.”

“Bah. Let me know if you see-”

FLASH-POOF!

Harry stumbled sideways at the very sudden and very bright light, hands scrubbing at his face. 

“ _Fuck fucking fucker!”_

“Colin, we talked about this!”

“Oh. Right.. Err.. sorry Neville.” The Gryffindor Firstie shuffled his feet a little, all but hiding behind his camera. “Umm.. sorry Harry. Mr. Potter. But I got a really good picture I think!”

His face fell dramatically as Harry hissed at him, the older but not much taller boy blinking furiously at the spots in his vision. _“I’m going to-”_

Neville pushed him further down the hall. “See you later Colin, and knock it off! Seriously! Before you piss more people off!”

_“He’s dead to me!”_

“You know I can’t understand you when you’re hissing but he’s just a baby. Leave him alone.”

_“I’m going to eat his heart for breakfast!”_

“Oh look, there’s Susan. Let’s go say hello.” 

Both hands against Harry’s back, he continued to shove Harry along. 

The hissing was creepy and likely was something very rude, but since it wasn’t in English it couldn't be used against Harry later on. Of course, since Harry wasn’t fighting against being removed meant it was all just loud noise anyways. Nothing to worry about. Nope.


	12. Altarcations

As was usual for the year, Harry missed the fuss completely. It was enough to drive a good psycho mad..

While upstairs the school dissolved into an uproar again, he and Neville and Professor Flitwick were up to their necks in dust and dirt as they investigated a closed off wing in the Dungeons. Flitwick had finally made time for Harry to practice the book of ‘Household Charms for the Busy Family”, because of course Harry hadn’t already been testing them out without a teacher present. That would have been irresponsible. Yup.

If the Slytherins had the Dungeons, and the Hufflepuffs had the Basement, would this unused section of the school be the Cellar? 

If there had been more bones lying about it could have been the Catacombs. 

Also- Harry thought that for a castle supposedly staffed by magic and tiny (ugly) elves that it was remarkable it could be so filthy. So far they had found four classrooms and what looked like a mini amphitheater with stone seats and an altar. Err.. table. Most certainly a table. 

Made of stone.

In the middle of the room. 

Covered in runes. 

Harry side-eyed the Professor.

“Hogwarts at one time trained Healers right here in the school. When St Mungo’s opened up, they took over, of course. A pity really, I think everyone should know the basics of human health and healing…” Flitwick shook his head. “St Mungos now only accepts students who have excelled in their Transfiguration, Potions, and Charms. Not an easy task I do say.”

Neville shuddered. While he was no longer terrified of Snape, class was still pretty awful as he loomed and towered over the students. It was a miracle _anyone_ brewed decently.

They could have been bored wandering around and casting sweeping and dusting and some minor repair charms, but the random treasures had both boys entertained. So far they had found a couple sets of Gobstones, some left behind anatomy books, a funny little glass pipe nestled in a box of crumbling herbs that Flitwick quickly confiscated.. Just some little things.

And a full-sized, fully articulated skeleton of an adult human. 

Neville rubbed at his eyes, but it didn’t help. The skeleton stayed colored blue and red and green. 

“Err..”

“Interesting. Likely it was used as a tool to teach young healers about the body,” Flitwick hmmed as he looked over his glasses at the figure..

“It’s cool! It’s all color coded for the different types of bone! See?” Harry enthusiastically used a  
boney hand to point at the multi-colored ribs. “That’s the Fibrocartilage and the Hyaline Cartilage.. See this little green spot on the head? That’s the Elastic Cartilage for the inner ear. Most of this is just plain bone but this is where the bone got built up on as the guy grew bigger. Did you know teeth aren’t considered to be bone? They’re enamel and.. something.” 

He looked up to see Professor Flitwick and Neville staring at him. While the teacher had managed to keep himself clean and tidy, poor Neville had smudges of dirt all over his face and robes. Attempts to clean the robe had not gone well, as the threadbare patches could attest to.

“..what?”

“Nothing, Mr. Potter, nothing.” 

Neville touched the side of his head curiously. “Inner ear?” The outer ear was obvious, but he’d never heard of an inner part.

“Yeah! There’s these three teeny tiny bones called a hammer and stirrup and anvil and they vibrate when there’s noise and that’s how you actually hear.” Harry beamed at his new toy, making the jaws clack together. “Anatomy is the backbone of the human race!”

Neville groaned. 

Flitwick giggled. He stopped laughing when a silver white cat floated into the room. In the voice of the cranky old Bat- “Filius, you are needed in the infirmary as soon as possible please.”

“Well boys, looks like that’s all the time we have for the day.” Flitwick looked around the cleaned up classroom and beamed. “Excellent work Mr. Longbottom, Potter. Mr. Longbottom, I’d like you to focus on your _intent._ Many spells depend on you to want them to work. Mr. Potter, do remember to practice your wand movement and pronunciation even if you don’t want to use them. Knowing the platform of the spells will help you in the long run I assure you.” 

“ ‘kay. I get to keep him right? No one else would have found him behind that f- stupid tapestry.” Harry glared at Neville as the other boy snickered. Harry had _meant_ to lean against the wall as Neville tried to clean up the old blackboard. What he’d done instead was fall over backwards into a hidden space behind the wall hanging. 

“I’ll have to ask the Headmaster, it is still school property after all. And if this is real bone, I’d be more of mind to give it a decent burial.”

“Aww..” Harry pouted as the skeleton was miniaturized and placed into the teacher’s pocket. 

Harry was just as filthy as Neville, clumps of spiderwebs trailing from his braid, but less tired. The spells had been easy once he’d been allowed to go wandless. Harry hated his wand. He had the funny feeling his wand hated him too but it wasn’t like he’d been given a choice in the matter. Olivander had looked at him, frowned, and reluctantly handed the box over. None of that whole choosing-thing everyone else talked about with broken windows and sparks flying.

Actually, Neville hadn’t been allowed to test for a wand either. And look how HIS wand acted, Nev practically had to force it. It was enough to make someone ponder about conspiracies. 

Before they hit the main floor, Flitwick crooked a finger at Harry for him to bend down a bit. “Before we part ways, I want to point out that Ron Weasley has been looking exceptionally clean these days. I do hope he’s not using Scourgify on himself, that spell can get dangerous when repeatedly applied to human skin.. As I assume you learned today.”

Harry coughed a little. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look Flitwick in the eye which was weird because Harry had absolutely no problem with lying. Most of the time. “I’m sure he knows better than to do that. He’ll probably stop. Now.”

Ron’s face had started looking a bit scaly these days. Raw and red and flaky as if he’d been badly sunburned. Or repeatedly scrubbed with a rough washcloth and hot water. His clothes, already worn out by his older brothers, looked even more weathered. Clean though. Very clean. Excruciatingly and painfully clean from the repeated charm.

“Yes, much better to stop now, than later hmm?”

Harry coughed again and straightened up. “Yes Professor.” Lying to Flitwick wasn’t like lying to Lockhart or the cranky old Bat upstairs, Harry had no problem with that. Probably had something to do with actually liking the little Professor. Dammit.

“With that little matter cleared up, off you go. Lunch is coming up and you’ll both want to clean yourselves up a bit with a good bit of soap and water. No more spells, let yourselves rest up.”

Harry and Neville nodded obediently. Harry jabbed a finger into Neville’s side, “see you in the Hall?”

Slapping his hand away, Neville grumped out- “Don’t wait for me, I have to go all the way up to the tower first. Hufflepuff is practically in the next _room._ ” 

Neville was getting good at swearing with his eyes, Harry was so proud. He grinned and shrugged at the Gryffindor and watched as the two left together, Neville to his House and the Professor to see whatever it was the old Bat wanted with him.

The Hufflepuff commons wasn’t exactly next door, he had to go down two more hallways and some stairs and past the giant painting of fruit to get to the basement.

As he clambered through the giant beer barrel that was the hidden door to House Hufflepuff, Harry once again had to wonder about the true personality of the Founder. But then, a couple hundred years ago everyone drank beer. From the infants to the elders, since the water wasn’t always safe to drink but the beer was. Well, for the Muggles it wasn’t. So it did and didn’t make sense that there was an entire fake (real?) wall of giant beer barrels in a school for children. 

He would just be glad they didn’t still smell like beer. Very glad.

“THERE you are!”

Susan snagged his arm once he finished clambering down from the barrel. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you! And you’re filthy! I thought you were practicing Household charms?”

Hannah was, of course, not far behind Susan. She very delicately used the tips of her fingers to pull loose some cobwebs from Harry’s hair. “Eww…”

“I was! We were! Some of the spells are just a little trickier than others when you use them on people and not walls.” He tried to wriggle free but Susan was having none of it. She pulled on him, trying to make him join the group of students in the middle of the room. 

“Come on! This is serious! They found another petrified student and it’s created _such_ a mess!”

“Yeah,” Ernie edged in, sporting a black eye he most certainly had not had this morning at breakfast. “Most of Gryffindor is up in arms cause it was one of their Firsties this time, the little guy with the camera. Weasley is dead certain as usual that you are to blame.”

“I have an alibi, a teacher this time, so fuck ‘em.”

“It’s not that easy,” one of the Prefects spoke up over their heads. “They don’t know when he was petrified and he was missing at breakfast they say. The teachers are going to start doing patrols and no one is allowed to go off on their own-”

“Especially you, Mister Vanishes-Without-A-Word-Potter!”

“-and there’s going to be a curfew,” the prefect doggedly continued over Susan’s grumbling. “One student petrified could have been an accident. Two students is a bigger concern.”

Well.. fuck. Harry was going to have to get a lot better at sneaking around if he wanted to get some quiet time to himself. Or was this a good thing? Sneaking had been awfully easy lately, he needed a better challenge.

Susan shook his arm roughly. “Harry! Pay attention! The Gryffindors are going to be even worse than they were! They’re going to be targeting you! And they have the Ravenclaws on their side!”

“Ravenclaws aren’t known for attacking people,” Harry pointed out. 

Susan growled. She let go off his arm to grab him by the ear, pinching down hard with her fingers and making him yelp. Sounding exactly like her stern Auror Aunt- “Harry James Potter, you WILL take this serious and you WILL be more careful. Do you understand me? You are NOT allowed to die because of the STUPIDITY of the GRYFFINDORS! ” 

“..got it..”

Satisfied by his meek reply, Susan let go. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared around at the astonished students. Ernie closed his mouth with a snap, Hannah had covered hers with both hands, blue eyes opened wide.

“...planning to join the Aurors, Susan?” Roger broke the silence.

“So what if I am?” 

“Just asking, that’s all. You’ll do great.”

“You better believe it!”

Susan, Harry decided as he rubbed at his aching ear, was mildly terrifying. He should give her a big stick and a hairbrush and set her loose on his Brothers, it would be _hilarious._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna apologize for the random collection of chapters, I swear I do have a point XD


	13. Exeeding Expectations

Thrown over Flint’s shoulder like a wiggly sack of potatoes, Harry used both hands to give the crowd of students the finger, first in the American style and then the English. “I hope you fuckers _choke_ on your Gryffindor bravery, you fucking cowards!”

Flint jostled him roughly, “shut the hell up Potter!”

“No one asked you to butt in! Put me down and I’ll deal with them all! Fucking fuckers think they can ambush me!” Harry was so mad he could barely think straight, unable to collect his thoughts together long enough to make a serious escape attempt. Just wriggle like an unhappy cat.

He was shocked out of his tantrum by a stinging slap to the ass. “Did.. did you just…” sputtering with his indignation. “ ‘th fuck?”

“You want to act like a tantruming toddler, I’ll treat you like one. Now calm the hell down before you get yourself lynched.”

“THEY attacked ME!”

“YOU aren’t supposed to be out wandering without a chaperone for that damn reason!”

Harry flipped off a portrait looking far too interested with his predicament. “How the hell do you know that? That’s for Hufflepuffs to know!”

“Open your eyes Potter, it’s not a fucking secret.”

Where the hallway branched off, going in one direction to the Dungeons and the other into the Basement, Flint finally stopped and dropped Harry to the floor. “Stop being such a damn idiot. If I have to pull you out of another brawl with the Gryffindors I will beat your ass black and blue.”

What was with everyone suddenly threatening to beat him up if he didn’t behave? First the sweet and honorable Susan, now the far more intimidating Flint. It was almost like being back home these days and Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“You won’t _catch_ me brawling again,” Harry stuck his lower lip out to sulk. The need to be childish was winning out over acting like an almost-teenager in control of himself. 

Flint narrowed his eyes, but accepted the vague promise with sharp nod and shove. “Now get back to your fucking common room.” He stalked off muttering to himself about babysitting.

Harry kept his sulk firmly in place as he turned down the other hallway. Sure the prefects were probably still scolding the Gryffindors, and they’d lose points and get detentions, but how the hell was that going to help? They were going to be back to heckling him tomorrow like nothing had happened since this school was run by weak-minded and judgmental idiots.

“Po- Harry! Wait up!”

Harry looked back over his shoulder and paused in surprise. Ernie was red-faced and panting as he stumbled down the last few steps. His tie was so loose the knot was halfway down his chest. His shirt was untucked and his shoes no longer carried their mirror-like shine.

Hannah was right behind him, fingers plucking at her robe anxiously. Her sleek blonde pigtails were looking less than sleek, not only were the braided strands twisted and loose but also missing the pink ribbons that tied them off.

Harry’s head tilted to the side as he considered them. They didn’t look like they’d been attacked, just.. rumpled. As if both of them had dressed in a hurry. It was a look most often sported by older students after being found in a broom closet.

“We were doing our homework in the library,” Hannah started breathlessly, “but we thought you could help us with a few questions. Then we ran into some Gryffindors on the way and what did you do to make them so mad? They’re furious!”

Harry’s head slowly tilted to the other side now, thick braid swinging behind him.. “You mean other than breathe in their presence?”

“Surely you’ve done _something_.” Hannah paused to clear her throat. “I mean.. People just don’t go around yelling for no reason. That’s insane.”

“Mmm…” was the hummed reply as Harry watched Ernie fumble with his tie, trying to make the knot sit at a more proper height. 

“Here, let me..” Harry stepped in closer and didn’t miss the flinch as he reached up to take the tie from him. It only took a moment to reset the knot and snug it up under Ernie’s chin, and this close up he could see the sweat on Ernie’s forehead beading.

“Did you guys run all the way down from the library?” he wondered.

“..no, just from the Gryffindors. Like I said, they’re really upset. Are you sure you didn’t say anything to them? Not about the attacks? Or Colin?”

“Who?”

“The Firstie who was attacked? The little blonde boy with the camera that followed you around and took your picture until you yelled at him in parseltongue and he got petrified...”

“I petrify a lot of people when I start hissing, he just had the unfortunate idea to make it literal.” Harry smirked, moving on to brush the wrinkles from Ernie’s robe. The boy was looking more and more uncomfortable under the attention, ears going bright red and shifting foot to foot.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so shabbily dressed. If you aren’t careful Ernie, you’ll start to look like Ron Weasley and that’ll be such a shame.”

“How da-” 

Hannah sharply elbowed Ernie in the side before he could finish. “YOU dress like Ron, so I wouldn’t go pointing fingers Harry.” At Ernie’s hurt look, she added quickly- “Not that he dresses badly of course. He dresses perfectly normal for his age. Uhmm..” now she was flustered. “That doesn’t matter right now! Who cares about clothes at a time like this?”

Harry grinned. He’d run out of wrinkles to smooth flat and now just leaned into Ernie’s side, opposite of Hannah, like he would have it if were Neville standing there. Watching Ernie squirm with unhappiness was the best thing to happen all day, it was improving Harry’s mood by the second.

“I don’t care at all, it’s you guys who are always trying to dress me up. I don’t see why you’re complaining now when I agree with you about dressing badly. What is it you always say Hannah? Ron is such a slob that a family of trolls would be easier to live with?”

The look of outrage was satisfying, but Harry wanted more. He didn’t know who these people were behind the masks, but they were NOT his Hufflepuffs. Hannah hadn’t giggled even once, and Ernie NEVER left the dorm unless his clothes looked perfect.

Ron most likely, but Ron was too stupid to think of this himself. Ron and… Hermione was awfully clever. But _why?_ What did they expect do get out of it?

“I thought you guys wanted my help for homework,” he pointed out finally. “Though why you’d come to me for help is a little weird, I’m always happy to lend a hand if I can.” He rubbed his cheek against Ernie’s shoulder and practically snuggled against him. Being short actually came in handy sometimes, though he’d never thought to use it this way.

“I think I left my bag in the library,” Ernie blurted out. He skittered sideways and away from Harry, hands patting at his pockets frantically. “I should go get it before someone else does.”

Fake-Hannah glared at him. _“Now?”_

Feeling a grin tug on his lips, Harry tucked his hands behind his back and tried to smooth out his face. “If you wait a moment I’ll go with you. I can grab my backpack and we can do our homework in the library together. Except.. There’s something you’ve both forgotten.”

The grin he’d tried to repress came out in full force. The amount of teeth he flashed at the Mock-Badgers made them take a step back with a gulp.

“Wh-what did we forget?”

“The choir club ended early today.” He’d timed it perfectly, the sound of footsteps were much louder now, audible even to the pair of idiots. 

Before either of them could do more then look at each other in panic, around the corner came a crowd of Hufflepuffs, not only with a be-ribboned Hannah and perfectly groomed Ernie, but Professor Sprout herself. Fake Hannah seemed to shrink in on herself and she took a tiny step to the side as if to put fake Ernie between her and them.

Harry giggled.

As it turned out, Polyjuice wasn’t exactly _illegal,_ but it was very, very frowned upon by most of society. Especially by those in charge of the school. For the first time anyone could remember, Gryffindor lost so many points in one swoop that they dropped from first place in House Points to last.

(The Slytherins was absolutely thrilled. Even if it was only December and there was a possibility of Gryffindor earning back.. well no, not even Gryffindor could earn THAT many points back!)

Hermione, as it was indeed Hermione, got the brunt of it. Both her and Ron had used the potion but SHE was the one to have brewed it, in the girls bathroom no less. And worse than that- she’d stolen the ingredients from _Professor Snape himself._

Further interrogation revealed that she’d gotten the recipe from the Restricted section of the library, courtesy of Lockhart signing a random permission slip while being flattered.

Snape was reportedly so furious that he was struck speechless. Harry was miffed, he’d been trying to do that for months but nooo.. Hermione and Ron were going to be in detention for a month at _minimum_ working off the cost of the potion AND their parents were to be written. 

(That part more than anything had caused Ron to turn absolutely green with nausea.) 

Inside the House, Hannah was just devastated. That someone could steal her image and use it for such selfish and stupid purposes had left her feeling violated and dirty, Susan confided quietly.

Ernie was less visibly upset during the day, but Harry could attest to the fact he slept very uneasily now. Since Harry was already getting up in the middle of the night for a couple hours to read, he didn’t mind sitting with Ernie to help him calm down and go back to sleep. It was what his brothers did when he wasn’t feeling well, and if Ernie didn’t want to talk about it in the morning that was alright too.

Who was Harry to judge someone for a bad dream? Besides, it was kind of nice sleeping next to someone again.


	14. Spoiled Rotten

“Oh I can’t wait to be home for Christmas-”

“Yule.”

“-Mum always goes mad with decorating the whole house with lights and ornaments. Christmas-

“Yule.”

“-is just the best time of the year! Family coming over, the Christmas-”

“Yule.”

“-presents, the food, the music, everything!” Hannah cheerfully sailed past all forms of interruption. Her spirits had been greatly lifted by the arrival of Winter Holidays, two whole weeks of being at home and no Gryffindors and no potions… She was back to giggling and playing with her hair as if nothing had happened.

She was giggling right now in fact, as she watched Harry peer around with all the wariness of an alley cat looking for dogs. 

Susan planted a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes with affectionate exasperation. “No one is coming this way Harry, you can relax now. Honestly. Don’t you like getting presents?”

“I don’t think it’s the actual presents that bother him,” Roger drawled out. "I think it's gushing and stammering that comes with them." Walking next to Hannah meant he was also used as a shield from the horrible masses of gift-wielding students.

"Then let us take note. If we need to punish Harry for sneaking off again we should just drown him in compliments and praise."

Harry didn't look amused, but the rest of them certainly were.

Last Christmas (Yule) not a single carefully chosen gift or bribe had reached Harry. People speculated about the strength of the wards that kept owls out, but no one could really fault it. Aggravating, but fair considering things. This year the various students with dark families trying to gain favor, and the students trying to bribe him into not siccing Slytherin’s Monster after them, were giving their presents now.

Fancy robes that had Susan howling because they were too large. (Far too large, Harry was tiny.) Enough parchment, journals, quills, and potion ingredients for all the second years to restock on school supplies. Four separate owls, with each one taking one look at Harry and flying away. Candy, candy, and more candy. Two Nimbus 2000 brooms, and one 2001. Several cloaks in various colors and materials (Harry did like the one lined with fur actually). Jewelry. 

Jewelry? 

Yup, necklaces and rings and hair clips. Sprout took one look at the hoard of diamonds and gold and glittering things and locked them up in her office. 

And if that still wasn’t enough, he had been given enough art supplies to set up a small shop.

“You’d never know that most of the school hates you,” Ernie shook his head. For the first time he could remember, Harry wasn’t protesting about being kept safely in the middle of the pack, with Ernie and Susan bringing up the rear as they trooped out into the snow for Herbology.

Susan of course was using it to her advantage and was braiding a ribbon into Harry’s wild curls. The red and green and gold was festive and very pretty and yes she’d removed the bells, stop fidgeting! “I know we planned to do gifts on the train, but perhaps we should do it tonight if everyone is going to keep mobbing him..”

“There’s going to be _more_?”

The sheer horror in his voice had Hannah giggling again, hands coming up to her mouth. 

“Oh this is just from the people who aren’t afraid of being seen. Tomorrow will have some of the more cautious ones. The really sneaky people will have theirs delivered over the night so that you’ll see them in the morning. You can expect a lot more.”

Harry whimpered.

He whimpered some more when Blaise cornered him outside the DADA classroom. “You too?”

The taller Slytherin blinked at the utterly forlorn words, but held out the simple wooden box. “Well.. yes. Is something wrong?”

Susan took the box from him, admiring the simple but silky smooth finish. “He’s just a little overwhelmed right now by the generosity of our peers. I’ll make sure he takes a look, you’ll be late for Transfiguration if you wait much longer.”

Blaise opened his mouth to protest but closed it. After a moment, “please be gentle with that. It took an awful long time to find and is extremely fragile.” He didn’t run off, he was too dignified for that, but there was a quickness to his step that said he wanted to. Cranky old Bat upstairs...

“That boy.. Ooo I’m going to hex him one day,” Hannah muttered.

“Blaise? Whatever for? He’s been perfectly nice so far, if a little..” Susan trailed off as she peeked into the box. Blaise was too smart to give Harry more jewelry, maybe some fancy ink?

“Conniving.” 

Roger nodded at Ernie’s word choice. “You can tell he’s up to something. He’s.. too nice.”

Susan snapped the box closed with wide eyes. She pushed it into Harry’s hands and him at a desk. “You are going to really, really like this and I hate him. So much. Bastard.”

_“Susan!”_

Of course this just meant they all wanted to see and class hadn’t exactly started yet though Lockhart was eyeing them warily after Hannah’s scolding.

Looking as if this was the last thing he wanted to do, Harry resigned himself and opened the box to see his latest present.

“Awwww!”

The girls, and Harry, cooed. Ernie looked at Roger over their heads and rolled their eyes. Nestled on a cushion in the box was a teeny tiny snake balled up so neatly that only the tip of a teeny tiny nose was visible between the looped coils. 

The snake was red, but not a plain red. It was a shimmery, fiery red that glimmered with orange and yellow highlights. The entire thing was the size of a golf ball, and hot to the touch. Nestled around it were round lumps of coal, for ambience perhaps, though being a magic snake..

It wasn’t a viper or a cobra or anything that Harry knew as dangerous, but holy fuck was it cute. And _shiny_. Lockhart was forgotten as Harry coaxed the tiny thing out of her tight bundle and into his hands. He thought it was a girl at least, and likely newly hatched going by her tiny squeaks of- 

“Me? Me. Me!” 

-and it was so fucking cute.

Ernie fished a small scroll out of the side of the box between the wood and the cushion, but he wasn’t given time to read it before Lockhart was clearing his throat pointedly. Ernie grimaced but took a seat.

Class went on as was usual, the Hufflepuffs half-heartedly paying attention, the Ravenclaws paying more attention but only because Lockhart showered them with points for each stupid question answered correctly. 

Harry wasn’t even sure which book they were discussing today but he didn’t care. He’d do the homework, which was on a much more reasonable topic, but for now he had more important things to do. Such as play with his new pet and coax her into wrapping around his neck. 

She was far too small to get all the way around though, so they both had to be satisfied with ‘Mimi’ curling around the knot of his tie. He could feel the heat wafting off her tiny body and it was nice. Winter got really fucking cold.

Neville was less than impressed. 

He was downright surly actually, taking Harry by complete surprise when they met up at the Great Hall. Dinner was a stupid affair, no table hopping allowed, so Harry had to grab him at the door to show off his fiery snake.

“Are you still mad about lunch?” 

“Mad? Why should I be mad? I love being left to the mercy of my Housemates and I’m thrilled you’re making a bunch of new friends with the Slytherins.”

Harry blinked at him. “So.. you are mad? They weren’t very interesting, so I won’t be doing it again if that helps. I had to talk to Blaise about Mimi and then everyone wanted to know what I thought of _their_ gift.... Why didn’t you sit with the Hufflepuffs?” 

“Because without you there, the Hufflepuffs don't exactly like having a Gryffindor hanging  
around in case you haven't noticed!” Neville knew he shouldn’t be yelling, but damn it all, Harry had abandoned him and Neville had the right to be upset. He didn’t care students were staring or dragging their feet entering the great hall, trying to eavesdrop.

“You point out all the time that the Puff’s are very loyal. Surely that extends to you too, you’ve been friends with them just as long as I have.”

“But _I’m_ not a Hufflepuff and that makes it _different._ ” 

Harry didn’t know what to say. Neville had been irritated with Harry before, exasperated, frightened for, and one time he’d grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shaken him like a wrinkled shirt because Harry had jumped from the third floor landing to the second instead of waiting for the stairs to stop moving..

But mad? Mad mad? That was.. new.

“I.. won’t be doing it again, it was just a one-time thing. And no-one would want me at the Ravenclaw table so no worries about that. And...well, we go home tomorrow right? No houses on the train, we’ll just be some kids playing cards all the way home. No points to lose, no curfew to keep, no teachers to avoid..”

Harry knew he was babbling but he couldn't make himself stop. 

It didn’t help, Neville just turned away from him. “It doesn’t matter. Sit anywhere you like on the train. It’s not like you worry about people giving you dirty looks or calling you names or sending you nasty letters because we’re friends.”

“Nev..”

“It’s _fine_. Just one more night and then we get to go _home_ for two weeks.” The way he emphasized the word, it sounded more like he was being sentenced to Azkaban. 

Completely bewildered, Harry could only stare as Neville stomped inside the Great Hall. Had Harry missed something? Sure, he knew Neville did not like Blaise hanging around. Or that Harry spent time with the Slytherin quidditch team, but..

It had just been lunch. After skipping breakfast. And the running group. Now that he thought about it, this was the first time he’d seen Neville all day. Harry had spent so much time dodging people and hiding behind his Badgers and chatting up the Snakes.. 

Oops.

So frantic was Harry trying to come up with ideas on how to make it up to Neville (round up some new victims for a poker game?) on the train tomorrow (refuse to entertain anyone wearing green and silver?) that it was only when he got back to the dorm room (maybe Neville would like the cloak with the leaves embroidered across the shoulders?) that Harry realized he’d left the snake-box and instructions back in the DADA classroom.

“Fuck.”

It would be tight, but he’d have to grab it on the way to the train tomorrow. Ah well.. for now Mimi would have to sleep curled up in the fireplace. 

She was so fucking _cute._


	15. Oh boy..

_“Shouldn’t you be on the train Mr. Potter?”_

Words echoing in his mind, Boy clawed his way towards consciousness to find himself with a screaming headache and a cold wetness covering the back of his head. 

Teeth clamped tightly together and trying his best not to move his head a single inch, Boy then realized he was also tightly bound to a chair. Very tightly. The fuzziness to the room could have been from the obvious concussion, or from the fact he could barely breathe under the rope looped around his chest and the back of the chair. 

Neville was going to be so mad he’d missed the train.

His brothers were going to kill him.

While that tended to be his first thought after doing something stupid, this time he was pretty certain it could be a literal killing for allowing himself to be kidnapped by a teacher, again. That or make him run another gauntlet and Boy wasn’t sure which one was worse. Death would be a little more restful, but you know… he’d be dead. Maybe even permanently.

Getting back to the situation at hand, Boy was tied to a chair in the middle of a not very well lit room. The walls looked like plaster, the floor looked like stone. Weren’t his powers of observation great? Of course he was a little distracted by the throbbing in his skull. That and the symbols painted on the floor around him.

A little hard to focus on as the words kept doubling up on themselves, but he’d have to be a complete fuckwit to not recognize blood, aching head or no aching head.

Was that.. It was! It was Latin! Someone had painted Latin phrases in blood on the floor with him in the center and there was a goddamn fucking cross on the wall. _Seriously?_

The door on the wall to Boy’s left crashed open, which was just a treat for his headache, and light from the other side streamed in to frame Lockhart in a golden halo. “Fear not, Harry Potter! I am here to cleanse you of the awful darkness that hounds your every footstep! I will free you from your suffering, and Wizarding Society will be safe!”

“...you’re fucking kidding me. Are you even Catholic? Don’t you have to be a _Priest_?”

Lockhart sighed, placing a hand over his heart. “You cannot sway me. It will be a long, difficult task, but I shall persevere. And with luck, you’ll even survive to see a brand new day.”

Boy blinked very slowly. 

His brothers were absolutely, one hundred percent, going to kill him if he died because of this fucking nutcase in bright pink robes and gaudy cross around his neck..

Boy watched Lockhart set down a wooden box, intricate with carvings and gilt. Lockhart opened it up with a flourish to pull out a small book. Didn't look like a bible, not nearly thick enough, but it looked old and battered and funny how many of those Harry had been seeing around lately, even excluding his own set salted around the library.

He made a mental note to see if anyone had picked them up yet.

As Lockhart paced around the room to compare the scribbles on the floor to the scribbles in the book, Boy wiggled his fingers. His arms were pinned to his sides with his hands down by his hips. His robe was missing, which was good because he could just about reach the pocket of his jeans, but uhh… what if he hadn’t dressed under his robe? Like most of the students didn’t? 

Fucking pervert.

“Yes.. yes.. Everything looks to be in order. Now we can begin!” Lockhart stood in front of the chair and puffed out his chest. “Now I know this might hurt, but please try not to scream. We don’t want to alarm any of the neighbors.”

While Boy stared at him with a flat, unimpressed look, Lockhart pulled a corked bottle out of the box. He struggled for a moment to get the cork out, but eventually it popped free. First Lockhart sprinkled it over Boy a couple drops at a time, but when nothing happened..

He upended the bottle over Boy’s head to douse him in the water, making the boy hiss as it ran down the back of his head. That seemed to please Lockhart at least, the fucker.

“There we go. I know this must hurt terribly, but don’t fret, you’ll be at peace soon enough!”

Great. Like that wasn’t ominous whatsoever. So not only was Lockhart performing an illegal exorcism, it was going to be a half-assed illegal exorcism full of gloating and threats. 

Wait...did Lockhart even know where to get Holy Water? Since he was a Wizard? Chances were the water wasn’t blessed at all unless it was some pagan blessing, which brought in a whole ‘nother set of questions if using some other religion for an exorcism would work..

Jesus fucking Christ, now his head was throbbing from thinking too hard as well as from being whacked in the back of the head with.. Something. Spells not hitting him correctly actually did have its downfalls.

Boy tried to wriggle his fingers a little further. He was grateful he still kept himself armed with at least one knife, but fuck everything he wished he had picked out a bigger one this time. He could.. 

almost.. 

touch...

“Stop wiggling so much, you’ll ruin my rune-work,” Lockhart scolded as he paused in his Latin recitation. It hadn’t been that bad honestly, he even had most of the pronunciation right. 

But what runes could Boy have- oh. 

Oh, would you look at that. He was going to assume that they were the reason he couldn’t get the knife to come to his hand, there were magic-blocking runes painted onto the back of his hands in purple ink.

That was… pretty clever.

Dammit.

Boy scrunched his eyes closed. He struggled to keep his breathing even as the situation started to fully sink in. He was trapped, concussed, helpless, and alone with a whack-job of a man who thought he was a god’s gift to the world. With a reputation of destroying monsters.

Perhaps.. Perhaps his constant mocking of Professor Lockhart hadn’t been a good idea..?

No. Fuck that.

Lockhart deserved every single comment and dirty look. Professional monster hunter? Like hell he was. He was just a vain, perverted flake who SAID he killed monsters. Boy knew monsters, REAL monsters, and Lockhart would have pissed himself if he’d ever had to face them.

Anger trampled right over the fear and stomped it flat. Boy lifted his head and glared at the man to say- “you’re a fucking idiot and I hope my brothers eat you alive, you piece of garbage!”

The curse of being short. Lockhart didn’t look nearly intimidated enough. In fact, he was _smiling_ as if Boy had done some clever trick.

“That’s the ticket! Let the darkness spew forth and release you from its grip!”

Well if he wanted it... Boy let loose a flood of insults that included every swear word he knew in English, German, Latin, and Klingon. Just in case that wasn’t enough, he twisted his tongue to pull some truly creative insults out of Parseltongue.

Lockhart did his best to drown him out with more random quotes from his book-

“Longissimus dies cito conditur!”

-and by the time Boy had run out of things to say, they were both panting for breath. Lockhart though was able to take a drink for his parched throat, Boy was left to suffer. 

“Fucker.” Boy muttered, more than a little petulant. Something caught his eye as Lockhart flipped through his tomb of ancient knowledge. 

Being only six inches meant Mimi looked more like a ruby-red worm than a snake, but it was a very determined hatchling making her way across the floor. Nice to see she was alive, but if she didn’t hurry it the fuck up Lockhart was going to stomp on her tiny body. 

Eyes flicking from the baby snake, to the blonde douche, and back to the baby, Boy suddenly remembered some important facts.

One, Mimi was a fire-snake. When she got a bit bigger she’d be able to start fires. Fires were amazingly destructive and fun.

Two, Harry was at times an extremely lazy wizard. He neither needed nor wanted to use a wand to do spell work, nor did he hyper-focus on needing his hands. Magic-nullifying runes? Pffft. That was such an amateur mistake. Not even a circle of runes on the floor, just boring Latin.

Harry, Boy, grinned. A wide, toothy grin that gave Lockhart a pause when he finally looked up to see why Harry had gone quiet. Worry flashed across his face as Harry narrowed his eyes and concentrated and.. _yesss_...

Lockhart shrieked as his robes suddenly burst into flames, frantically beating at them with his hands before grabbing for his wand. Considering his pocket was on fire it was a perilous move but a few sprays of water later and everything was under control. Everything was fine. 

Everything was not fine.

In case that wasn’t obvious. 

Harry didn’t even need to free himself from the chair to cut the Professors throat wide open. 

The general problem Harry had with Wizards was that everything was so _easy_ for them. Wave a wand and the floor was clean. Say the right word and put a fire out. Where was the effort? Where was the sense of accomplishment? They enslaved themselves to pieces of wood and silly words and when those were taken away, they were as helpless as babies.

Susan always complained at this point that it was easy for him, not for Wizards. Not everyone could just look at something and make things happen, most people had to practice and memorize and constantly work at it to get their spells working right. Harry was just an _obnoxiously talented jackass_ who needed to stop being a _bragging bitch._

There were times when Susan was his absolute favorite Hufflepuff. Usually when she was channeling her Aunt..

Poor little Mimi was so tired by the time she wiggled and bit her way up Harry’s pant leg and onto his lap. By that point too Harry had finally bothered to cut his way free of the ropes binding him and was more than happy to scoop her up into his hands.

He spent a couple minutes cooing at the baby for being so clever to find him and few more minutes trying to figure out where to stash her. Eventually the two came to a mutually satisfying agreement that she could curl up between the strands of his braid, AKA Baby had her first tantrum and Harry didn’t want to listen to her whining if he put her in his jeans pocket.

Once THAT was settled, Harry went over to poke at Lockhart’s body. The puddle of blood on the floor was great, a beautifully perfect red that soaked into his socks and cuffs of his jeans. Harry crouched down to stick his hand in the puddle and then licked his fingers clean.

Tingly. Like a good soda.

The Slicing Charm was his favorite school-sanctioned spell. Traditionally taught to children in their second year of Hogwarts in Herbology to help with plant harvesting, it wasn’t much harder to go from from using it on tree branches to using it on soft human flesh. 

Not hard at all. 

Maybe Wizards were a bit lazy but.. Harry could get used to it.


	16. I'm the baby, gotta love me.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Boy found the kitchen easily, the cottage only had three rooms and a cellar. Sure, it was an event dragging Lockhart’s corpse up the stairs from the Cellar of Doom, but now he had dinner cooking and he was excited to try it. Regular human was good, Wizard meat had to be something special, right? He saved the kidneys too, stashing them in the fridge for now. 

Boy had been torn between frying some steaks or making a roast.. Some sloppy carving later, he decided a roast would be easier. His brothers would have to show up eventually, and a hot meal might soothe some ruffled feathers.

It wasn’t his fault this time! He’d been kidnapped! He hadn’t run off to fool around, he’d been forcibly taken against his will and therefore his brothers shouldn’t get mad!

Yeah, Boy was screwed no matter what he did at this point. Sooo...

He also saved as much blood as he could while he butchered the body. Not nearly as tidy as Eyeless would have done but not a terrible job if he did say so himself once you looked past his first attempt. Lockhart’s head went into the biggest pot Boy could find and that stewed nicely on the back burner. No onions sadly.. The Cottage was practically barren for supplies.

Had Lockhart just moved in or…? Probably a rental just for the Exorcism. Would explain the random kitchen stuff and lack of food. He’d have to go dig through Lockhart’s trunk later if it didn’t try to eat him..

The living room had a _huge_ fireplace. Like, massive. Big enough for a full grown man to- oh yeah. People traveled by fire didn’t they? Well if it kept storming outside, maybe he’d try that option and go to Diagon. Couldn’t be too hard. For now Boy used it to keep his bowls of blood warm. He had to stir them often to keep them from clotting up too.

As boredom set in, Boy started eyeing the pristine white walls. So bland, so empty. They needed decorating. 

He was in the middle of creating some large, tree-like shapes on the living room wall when the knocking started. Not some polite, neighborly tap-tap, no this was the sound of someone pissed off and banging their fist into the door. No guessing on who had _finally_ shown up.

Boy looked down at himself. 

Blood was smeared all over his shirt where he’d been wiping his hands, and his jeans were splattered from the dismantling. His socks had been done in by the puddle down below, so he was walking around in bare feet now. Painting the walls had left his hands and arms bloody up to the elbow because staying clean while being creative was for boring people.

Yeah.. he looked like he’d been having fun. That was not going to go well in his favor.

Boy rubbed his hands against the last clean spot on his shirt and threw the door open. “It wasn’t my fault! I was kidnapped from the school and he’s dead now and I made dinner and please don’t be too mad. Hi?”

Jeff, soaked to the bone from the downpour and covered in mud from the knees down, was not reassured by the spew of words. “You are in. So much. Fucking. Trouble..”

“It _really_ wasn't my fault this time! There’s no phone here, and I don’t even know where here is. He was too busy screaming Latin at me for a proper monologue. Ow… _ow_! Not the hair! I’m concussed!” 

Ignoring him, Jeff dragged Boy closer, fingers grabbing the thick braid at the nape of his neck. “I don't fucking care who’s fault it is. Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through over the last two days?”

This close to Jeff’s face, balanced on his toes to relieve the pressure on his scalp, Boy could see the tiny flecks of red in Jeff’s mostly-blue eyes. Like blood had been splattered onto his face and never cleaned up. “I knew you’d come.. I thought I should stay here and wait.. and ”

Boy trailed off miserably. It was true wasn’t it? It didn't matter whose fault it was when Lockhart, useless and stupid Lockhart, had gotten the drop on him and he never should have been able to.

Jeff scoffed. His grip on Boy’s hair finally loosened, and his fingers crawled up the back of Boy’s head like a spider. He probed at the skin and bone under the matted hair and while Boy winced and whined, Jeff didn’t seem too alarmed. Nor did he care to be gentle.

“Doesn’t feel cracked.. Though it might be later when we go over _how not to get kidnapped by a human._ You’re not a baby anymore, you fucking idiot. Start paying some fucking attention to what’s going on around you!”

That.. sounded suspiciously close to what Harry had been told by the Slytherins lately. 

“But-”

Jeff smacked him upside the head, turning Boy’s whole head into a gong as his ears started to ring. 

“Toby got fucking cried on by some little girl at the train station when he went to get you, he nearly ate her face. She was in hysterics about how you never showed up when so many people want you dead. You fucking twit, why didn’t you tell us it was that bad? I swear to fucking god if you die before I can kill you, I will make your life _miserable_.”

Boy considered saying “but I’ll be dead?” but uh.. he kind of wanted to be not-dead for a good while longer. 

“It wasn’t that bad. And um.. Dinner should be ready soon?” as a peace offering. The flat look he got back said it wasn’t a very good one. Boy found himself suddenly spun around, and marched over to a corner of the room and shoved into it. 

“Stay right fucking here and think about all the stupid shit you’ve been doing.”

“But-!” Boy started to turn his head and got his nose shoved up against the plaster.

“Do _not_ fucking try my patience right now,” Jeff growled. Boy listened to him walk away, guessing that the older boy wanted to check out the rest of the cottage. He didn’t dare look away from the wall, eyes crossing as he focused on the bloody butterfly smeared onto the plaster. 

On one hand, a beating would have been over with faster. On the other, a beating on top of a concussion would not have been very fun. He could feel Mimi between his shoulders as a bundle of heat and he was glad she had settled down there and not where Jeff could have grabbed her. 

Jeff would have been even more upset if he’d gotten bit.

….goddammit he was too old to be stuck in a corner. This was boring. Tedious. Maddening. As he listened to Jeff prowl around the cottage and then disappear into the Cellar, forcing himself to stand still and quiet was making his skin itch.

Boy whined.

Then nearly jumped out of his skin when the front door slammed open. HAH! He knew Jeff couldn't have been the only one out there. Boy grinned at the wall because he didn’t quite dare leave the corner, especially when the noise was sure to bring Jeff back to the room.

“ _Holy shit_ is it raining out there! I nearly lost the truck to a tsunami! I think I saw some guy loading animals into a giant boat! I almost drowned!”

Toby’s hair lay flat for a change, absolutely dripping with water. He shucked his coat, tossing in the direction of the fireplace, and took his goggles off to try wiping them dry.

“You could roast a whole cow in that fire! Where’s the wood? You little rascal, how dare you run off to have fun without us again!”

Even though he’d been half expecting it, Boy still yipped in surprise when Toby pounced on him from behind and picked him up off the floor. Half-hugging, half-crushing him, “I am SO glad to see you’re alive. Jeff went absolutely bugshit nuts when he found out you were missing. Do you know how hard it is to keep up with a crazy Proxy? Do you? Cause I do!”

“Then you know how everyone else feels about your manic ass!”

“Shhhh little baby. No sassing when you’re in this much trouble. Where’s Jefferson?”

Boy squirmed, feet dangling above the floor. He could feel Mimi starting to squirm against his back and he knew Toby would notice her soon. “He’s checking out the basement where I killed Professor Dipshit. He was trying to do an exorcism! On _me_!”

“I always knew you were the Devil.” Toby finally set him down on the floor, then locked his arm around Boy’s neck to keep him close. “Let’s give him a few minutes to pull himself back together then. Seriously Brat, you have got to get this whole running off thing under control. His nerves are frayed enough without you getting yourself kidnapped. We crossed half of _England_ in a _storm_ to get here and my poor truck..” Toby whimpered.

“Wasn’t my fault..” Boy muttered. 

Just as he expected, Toby finally noticed the squirming warmth on Boy’s back. Especially when Mimi popped her head out of Boy’s braid and hissed at Toby with all the threatening force of tissue paper.

“Oh my god. A worm just hissed at me. Is that a worm? Oh my god I want one. I want a bucket of them. I want to feed a bunch of angry worms to Masky’s chickens and watch them hatch angry chicks.”

“She’s a snake and she’s mine and you are NOT gunna feed her to the chickens!”

It was an awkward, wiggly dance as Boy kicked Toby in the shins while still trapped in a headlock. Toby tried to grab at the baby snake with his free hand, except that hand was on the opposite side of things and Boy was NOT cooperating!

“Hold still!”

“Let go!”

“I just wanna look!”

“ _Bite him!_ ”

Grabbed by his shirt collar, Boy was ripped out of Toby’s grasp. At the same time, Jeff grabbed Toby by HIS shirt collar and pulled him the opposite direction. Then it was reversed and Boy’s forehead met with Toby’s with a bone-jarring crash. 

After being seated on opposite sides of the room from each other, Boy looked up at Jeff pitifully and rubbed his aching head. “You thought I needed _another_ concussion?”

Jeff growled at him. 

Boy snapped his mouth shut and sulked in his corner.


	17. Magically Delicious

They ended up staying the rest of the night and the following day at the cottage. The plan had been to grab and go but sometimes plans needed to be changed. Especially when Boy finally got his answer of what it would be like to eat the flesh of a Wizard infused with magic down to his bones..

What was it like?

Well… Honestly… The three of them got high as a fucking kite. 

Drugs were usually a major No-No in the Proxy house, coming down from the Slender Man himself. He didn’t like how it muddied up their brains or something. No drugs, no smoking, no drinking except for special occasions.

The lack of any seasonings on hand meant the meat was pretty bland, but the tingly feeling it left on the tongue almost made up for it. Almost like meaty Pop Rocks. When you combined that with the lack of drug experience, all three of them were left staring idly at the ceiling and the pretty fluttery lights Boy had conjured before they realized something funny was going on.

Truthfully, Boy could see some benefits to putting Toby on a prescription. Laying on the floor and watching the light show, Toby was zen. Toby was chill. Toby was at peace with the world and the world was at peace with Toby.

And while Boy had never considered Jeff to be high-strung before now, compared to his current melted-butter relaxation, he was a high-maintenance chihuahua at the best of times.

This wasn’t to say Boy was any better, sprawled out with his head on Toby’s stomach and pondering important things he’d never thought to ponder before.

How he was going to explain his disappearance at school? Nope. Explaining the runes stained onto his hands? Nope. Deciding what he was going to do about the rampant rumors and angry students and unfair teachers? Nope.

“Isn’t it statistically improbable that we’re all gay?”

‘It would be, if we were gay. I’m not gay, I’m…” Toby paused a moment. “...opportunistic.”

“It’s called Pansexual, Fuckwit.”

“But I don’t like pancakes. Waffles are better..”

Jeff blinked a few times. He turned his head to look at Toby’s chin and blinked again. Also using Toby as a pillow from the hard floor, his head was next to Boy’s but on the opposite side. 

“...yeah okay.” 

Boy had to protest this. He raised a finger in the air to make sure it was visible that he was protesting. “You fuck around with Masky and Hoody and I don’t want details.” He raised another finger. “Jeff and Laff have their thing.” He raised a third finger and stared at it for a long moment. “...Liu and Eyeless spend a lot of time together?”

“Now _there’s_ a match made in fucking hell.”

Toby giggled. “I could see it. They’re both so calm and dead inside.”

“Eyeless isn’t dead.”

Boy and Toby waited for the other part of the sentence, because Liu wasn’t dead either. 

Was he?

Were any of them alive?

What _was_ life?

The feeling of utter relaxation lasted through the day and a very deep sleep. Night had fallen again and it was time to get home before the others started their own manhunt. Boy grabbed his snake from the fireplace-

“She’s not a worm! She’s fucking adorable and leave her alone!”

-and his belongings from the bedroom-

“A lot of people boobytrap their trunks. I’m not touching it. Just let it get burnt up.”

-and the leftover meats to share with the family. The last thing the teenagers did before leaving was set the remains of Lockhart and his things and the cottage in general on fire. A great big fiery bonfire.

Toby had been most excited about that, Boy taking his hand and pretending to use it to set the remains of Lockhart’s body and belongings on fire. A big fire. Boy was a big fan of this new skill and so was Toby.

“I want to be a Wizard!”

Boy stuck his tongue out at him. 

Even Jeff was in a better mood, and that was unexpected. Boy had been not looking forward to a repeat of last summer’s events but Jeff seemed to have decided to let it go. It was making Boy feel paranoid as he got shoved into the truck. 

(After they pried it loose of the fucking mud… that had sucked. Being in the middle of nowhere sucked, the roads were death traps of rocks and mud and trucks were _heavy_ dammit!)

Poor thing had quite a few more dents than Boy remembered, and while it would never be shiny, the truck was a lovely dull blue with all the dirt washed away by the storm.

Trapped in the middle without a seatbelt in sight, Boy had no escape route. His paranoia did a gleeful “I TOLD YOU SO!” dance as Toby decided to bring up last night’s conversation.

“So who’s the boy that got you thinking about sex?”

“Toby I will _fucking murder you_ -” Jeff growled because he was a damn hypocrite. 

“He started it! He said ‘we’ were all gay, and if he was crushing on some girl he would have said ‘you’ were all gay. Though Jeff is the only gay boy here, the rest of us just have.. limited options. Rape isn’t as fun as it used to be,” shaking his head sadly.

Boy tried to climb over Jeff to get to the door. Sure the truck was bouncing down the road hitting potholes hard enough to shake his teeth loose, but because of that they weren’t actually moving that fast. He’d survive the fall.

“Sit the fuck down pipsqueak,” Jeff elbowed him sharply. “Toby, you’ve never raped anyone in your fucking life.”

“Not as far as you know,” Toby’s eyes crinkled behind his goggles, mouthguard hiding his grin. 

“That’s ridi- Boy, sit the fuck down!” 

“I’m not gunna talk about your sex life! I don’t wanna talk about anyone’s sex life and I do NOT have a crush and I fucking hate you both!”

The truck rolled to a slow stop as Jeff tried to wrangle his littlest brother into place, while Boy flailed at the door handle.Toby tried to help and that just made things worse cause Mimi took offense to that and nipped Toby on the nose. 

“She BIT me! The little worm bit me!”

“Good!”

“Get your fucking pet under control before I throw her out!”

The cab of the truck was really too small for a real fight. Toby wrapped his arms around Boy’s shoulders and pinned his arms to his sides. Jeff sat on his feet. 

“Will you chill the fuck out? Jesus fucking Christ. Someone has to talk to you about it eventually, what’s the damn problem?”

“I don’t wanna hear it from YOU!” Looking at Jeff’s expression, Boy hurried to explain. He raised his voice to override Mimi’s shrill hissing- “I mean.. You’re _weird_. You and Laff.. it’s.. _Weird_ and _bloody_ and full of _stitches_.” His hands flailed the best they could while still pinned.

Toby cackled. He dodged Mimi’s second snap at his nose, lodged in Boy’s hair as she was, and pointed a finger at Jeff. “He has you there. You two have the most fucked up relationship out of all of us, and you are actually gay for Pennywise.”

Toby shoved Boy away, the few inches he could go, and popped the truck back into gear. He wasn’t entirely certain how to get home but they would arrive there at some point. Eventually. Maybe. Jeff had forced him to take the most roundabout way while following his gut instinct.

He turned his head to waggle his eyebrows at Boy, deciding to continue with- ““so who do you wanna talk about sex with if not us? I’ve got some magazines..” 

Boy hesitated as he considered the question more seriously than Toby had intended. Out of all his brothers, who would tease him the least while still having useful information? If he absolutely had to have this conversation, then it would be with..

“Eyeless.” 

“Yeah, good choice. I think he’s been planning it out since you turned ten, the over-prepared lunatic. I think he made charts. Such a Tiger Mom.”

Jeff stopped sulking and rolled his eyes. He yanked Boy up against his side and ruffled his hair, after flicking Mimi under the chin to make her stop being noisy. “You’re such a fucking dork.”

Boy was happy to note that his head didn’t hurt anymore, the bruises from being smacked by Lockhart had healed nicely. He may not be able to get magically fixed up, but who cared when he healed so quickly anyways? “It’s your fucking fault. You raised me to be this way.”

Jeff scoffed. “Should have left you in the fucking cabinet.”

“ANYWAYS,” Toby yelled over the beginning of a new scuffle. “I still wanna hear about the crush. Come on, you can trust us! Who are we gunna tell? The internet?”

“I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING CRUSH!”

“Goddammit don’t scream in my ear, you little fucker!”

This was why Boy missed his brothers while at school, they always made boring trips so much more fun. Ohey, maybe they could stop for lunch somewhere!


	18. A New Year

“Ready?”

“Just a sec’!”

It wasn’t Christmas that Boy looked forward to, oh no. Not that there was anything wrong with Christmas, he liked it well enough when Krampus stopped by, birch rods and all, and the food was a bit fancier than usual, and gifts were inevitable when Toby was involved (and the Christmas carols. Oh god the Christmas carols…) Yeah Christmas was fun.

But New Years was so much _better_ once Boy got big enough to hold a knife without stabbing himself.

If Boy hadn’t been allowed to go home for New Year’s, he would have thrown the biggest tantrum known to mankind.

Boy pulled his hood up over his hair to grin at the mirror. This year he had gone with a look more like Toby’s, with a mouthguard rather than a full face-mask like Eyeless. Last year the mask had kept slipping around and getting in the way, he had no idea how Masky and Eyeless worked with the silly things. Hoody wore a cloth mask but that just seemed even more suffocating. 

No, this time he wore a mouthguard of black cloth with bones and teeth painted across the front to go with his new hoodie. Everyone else had more of a ‘classic’ theme going on, but Boy was free to wear whatever he wanted to the New Year's celebration in London and he wanted to wear a blood red hoodie with a ribcage and spine painted on.

There was going to be fireworks, and street food, and so many people out drinking and partying and having so much fun.. It was the one time of the year the whole family could go out and have fun together, rather than sneaking around in ones and twos. 

Even Laff was going and that was practically a miracle.

“Get in the truck Brat, hurry the fuck up!”

Because Liu would shoot Toby if they had to drive together, because L.J. needed a lot of leg room, because Boy wiggled, because they were all fucking nuts in their own way, the group ended up taking all three cars to the city to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.

There had been a very, very brief mentioning of splitting up the usual pairs just for kicks, but the logistics of who could tolerate being confined with who in a small space for a long time swiftly nixed it. Liu drove with Eyeless Jack and BEN, Masky had Hoody and Laughing Jack, which of course left Toby with Jeff and Boy as usual. Perfect.

Boy had his bat, cut down to a more manageable size and it’s center plugged with lead. It was heavy and sturdy and he couldn’t wait to see how it worked. He still carried a knife just in case, which Jeff AND Masky had double checked before letting him leave the castle.

“What are the rules?”

Boy leaned forward between the two front seats to see Jeff better. “Don’t tease anyone bigger than me unless they’re fucking wasted and clueless. Don’t stab anyone if there’s people watching. Don’t tell anyone my name or touch anything if not wearing gloves, and don’t forget my weapon for any reason even if I’m fucking dying.”

Toby thumped his hands on the steering wheel of his.. err, _borrowed_.. car in a rapid beat as he finished the list impatiently. “Don’t accept any drinks, don’t accept any food, lookout for cameras, let’s get this party started!” With that and a cackle, he stomped on the gas pedal and the little car took off with a flurry of small rocks.

“How come we never drive with Eyeless or BEN?” scrambling for his seatbelt.

“Because Toby makes Eyeless carsick and BEN screws up the fucking radio.”

Boy squinted a bit, but accepted the answer. It took him less than ten minutes before he leaned forward again to speak the dreaded words- “are we there yet?” Toby nearly laughed himself sick (and the car off the road) as Jeff turned around and tried to strangle Boy, getting himself tangled up in his own seatbelt. Boy just squirmed over to the other side of the backseat and laughed at him.

Between that and Toby belting out ‘All the Single Ladies’ it was a miracle any of them got to London. Boy clawed his way out of the car as it rolled to a stop and dove behind Masky who had only arrived ahead of them cause Toby kept getting distracted by weird little side roads.

“Are we heading for the river for the firework crowd, or the Center for the drinkers?” Liu sighed as he edged away from the chaos. Laughing Jack tried to help by grabbing Jeff, a move that made sense to only him, getting himself kicked in the kneecap for the effort. 

“CLOWN DOWN!” Toby yowled before attacking Liu by slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Don’t be such a killjoy Liu, we have all night! I’ll buy you a beer! And a silly hat! And fireworks!”

“We’re both underage.”

Hoody took Liu’s other side, giving him no choice in the matter. “That argument has never worked, I dunno why you keep bringing it up. Come on _mijo_ , let’s put a smile on that grumpyface.” Trapped between them, Liu was marched off to his doom amidst happy extroverts.

That triggered the rest of the group to head out, Masky yelling after them “ONE beer!” before collaring Jeff by his hood and yanking him off of Laff. “Stop trying to fuck your boyfriend in the middle of the street and take your brat to get some dinner.”

Boy laughed at the look of outrage on Jeff’s face, the Killer having jumped onto Laff’s back in an attempt to reclaim the knife the fucker had _stolen_ and then held _hostage_. Laff however was seven feet of lanky limbs and easily held the weapon out of reach even after Jeff had climbed him like a tree.

The clown presented the knife to Masky with an exaggerated flourish, before mischievously blowing Jeff a kiss and vanishing. He had balloon animals to make and children to charm, January was going to be a fun month for him and his soon-to-be chosen playmate. 

“I’m going with BEN!” Boy grabbed the Glitch Elf by his arm and tried to drag him off. BEN hopped sideways for a moment before he tossed the city map at Eyeless. “Later!”

Jeff squawked but the youngest Proxies were off and running before Masky thought to release him. It was New Years! BEN was just as good a chaperone as any of the Proxies and wasn’t so fucking tall. And think of all the things they could get up to with the bonus of being young and surrounded by indulgent adults!

Besides it wasn’t like they didn’t see the other proxies as the hours passed, passing each other on the street or in the parks as the night wore on. Killing was for Midnight when the year changed over, until then it was just some casual mischief and chaos. Picking pockets, slapping a woman on the ass as some drunken fool passed her, tripping a waiter carrying a full platter of drinks..

A handful of nails placed right under the tires of a parked car..

Fun things like that!

When the crush of people and the noise got to be too much, Boy and BEN ducked out of sight and relocated to the roof of a building to catch their breath. People never really looked up at boring old buildings, and it was pretty dark, so the pair of them felt safe from prying eyes.

“It’s like this at the school sometimes,” Boy wrinkled his nose down at the busy street. 

“Loud and chaotic?”

“Exactly. Too many people all wandering around and always wanting to know what you’re up to. I think I’ve made friends with most of the kids in my dorm and sometimes they’ll leave me alone if I ask but… sometimes it’s still too fucking much and it’s _suffocating_.”

BEN grimaced. “We are kind of isolated at the castle aren’t we? I don’t mind the occasional crowd for things like this, but I prefer my forums. You hanging in there pretty okay though?”

Nodding, Boy leaned into BEN’s side. “Some days are better than others, and it’s kind of like watching an ant farm. Every once in a while I have to fucking shake it up to see what they ‘ll do, and uh… don’t tell Jeff… but I get into a lot of fights. A _lot_ of fights. The Lion kids are always ready to put up their fists if I start heckling them and it’s just so much fucking fun to see them all riled up.”

“Yeah, let’s not tell Jeff his baby brother is a bully,” BEN snickered with a poke to Boy’s side.

“...aren’t we all bullies?”

“No. Well.. not really. We don’t..” BEN stopped to think about it for a moment. “Mmm.. well.. some people would say yes, because we torment people for our own enjoyment, but..” He paused again. “Huh. I guess I’ve never really thought about it. We torment and murder people sure, sometimes steal their sanity, but I don’t consider us bullies. We’re just.. psychotic murderers and I’m sure there’s a difference. Somewhere.”

Boy grinned. “Are murderers better than bullies, cause we put people out of their misery?”

“ ‘course. We’re not _monsters_ ,” BEN grinned back. 

Boy cracked up now, though he tried to keep it quiet so as to not draw attention from those down below. He continued munching on his wonderfully greasy fish’n’chips, hot and salty and great. Poor BEN didn’t get to enjoy trashy street food like this though, he had to be content with sucking on batteries.

In about a year, a little less actually, he’d have caught up to BEN’s human age and that was a strange thought. He still had a few inches to go before he caught up in height, and mentally BEN was always going to be much older, but still a strange thought. 

“We’re going to be the same age soon,” Boy mentioned out loud. “I’m not going to be the baby for much longer.”

BEN burst out laughing, making Boy pout. “Don’t fool yourself, you’ll always be the baby. That’s why you’re so short after all, we can’t help but consider you our smallest and littlest brother to protect from the normal people.”

Boy stuck his tongue out, elbowing the Elf in the side. “You fucking suck. I’m going to start growing soon, just wait and see! I’m not exactly helpless either, you guys threw me to the wolves at a fucking _boarding school_ for two years now!”

“Awww, you know we miss you,” BEN snickered. “Eyeless has no one to micro-manage anymore, and who else is willing to back me up in a game without shooting me first?”

BEN’s watch started beeping, keeping Boy from replying. “Almost midnight. Have you chosen your prey or gunna wait to see what pops up?”

“I’ll wait till we get to the river. Everyone is traveling in clumps and I don’t wanna rush it.”

“Probably a good choice. We might have pair up if we can’t find anyone on their own… Though pushing a few people off the bridge could be fun enough for me.”

“How is it fun if there’s no blood to play with?”

“Spoken like a true disciple of Jeffrey Woods. Come on, we better go find the guys anyways, before they come looking for us.”

For a ghost and a wizard, it was an easy trick to get down from the roof. Then it was towards the river for the firework show and.. Yeah, probably pushing a couple of people off the bridge. It would be fun to watch the flailing, of people in the water and out.

Just as long as Boy still got to stab someone though. He had to go back to school in a couple days, and he needed to make some blood-splattered memories for when he got hellishly bored in class. 

...oh yeah. He needed to get gifts for his roommates. Crap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, actual storyline is coming up! Thanks so much for sticking with me and my randomness <3


	19. Prodigal Son

Bo- Har- The Terror of House Hufflepuff rubbed his shoulder with a grimace. He knew if he looked under his shirt he’d find a perfect set of fingerprints on each side from Jeff’s sudden bout of separation anxiety. No not sudden, more like _surprisingly intense_. 

Toby had managed to pry him off long enough for B- Harry to get through the portal and onto the train as the last whistle sounded, but for a good long moment it hadn’t looked like a sure thing. Which is why no one had wanted Jeff to go with to drop Boy off in the first place. 

Boy wouldn’t have minded not making the train because surely there were more interesting ways to get to the school (teleporting with Slender Man was insane) but Harry missed Neville and Neville would be on the train. 

And if Boy didn’t have multiple personalities by the time he was allowed to leave Hogwarts behind, it would be a fucking miracle. Even if according to Liu it wasn’t that easy, and since Boy wasn’t blacking out or losing time when he became ‘Harry’, he had nothing to worry about. Just some cognitive dissonance. Uncomfortable but not too disruptive.

Hoody had nodded in agreement, saying that multiple personalities were way over-rated and not actually that fun to deal with. You were always forgetting the good parts and nothing ever made sense. Next thing you know, you were getting shot by your friends and presumed dead and it was all just one big hassle.

That was when Eyeless decided to add his own two cents and say that the Multiple Personality Disorder was actually Dissociative Identity Disorder and most known cases of DID were caused by therapists trying to find traumatic reasons behind disruptive behaviors. Also known as False Memory Syndrome and not allowed as a defense in court. Why the fuck he needed to know that was a mystery to everyone but him and the curse of having too much time on their hands.

(Boy loved watching his brothers debate this stuff though, if he was able to find a safe spot to watch without getting pulled into the resulting hissy fits and aggressive retaliations.)

Anyways. 

Harry scampered onto the train, backpack over his shoulder and squirmed his way down the corridor through the gossiping students. He always chose to sit near the end of the train, oh how he hated the sound and smell of the engine, so hopefully his friends would have chosen a spot near the back to wait for him. 

..would they wait for him? He had missed the train out, but these were Hufflepuffs and awfully clingy. Surely they had saved him a seat. Probably. Maybe. 

Harry pushed his sunglass to the top of his head and eyed the doors lining the hallway. It was rapidly emptying as students found their groups, mostly older Slytherins at this part of the train according to a tradition Harry had only recently discovered and still didn’t care about. A couple glanced at him and then did a double take. 

“Mr. Potter, you must be looking for the Hufflepuffs. Fourth door on the right I do believe.”

“...thanks,” because she HAD been helpful even if she was far too respectful towards a brat like him. At least she didn’t fucking bow like some of the Slytherins did. As a whole, the Slytherins were pretty fucking creepy, acting like a giant cult looking for a leader.

Who the fuck wanted a twelve year old boy to be their leader?

Slytherins were best to be avoided honestly. They refused to fight, kept breaking up his fights with the Gryffindors, tripped over themselves to offer him notes for class.. If it weren’t for Captain Flint, Harry would write the whole house off. 

Well, Blaise was kind of okay. Sometimes.

Harry found the fourth door and threw it open, because checking to see if it was the right compartment would have been boring.

“HARRY!”

Harry had time to look alarmed but not much else as Hannah threw her arms around him for a hug. “We were so WORRIED. Why didn’t you owl someone? You horrible, no good boy! I should make Susan slap you! Where HAVE you been?”

“You could just do it yourself,” Ernie pointed out, looking relieved himself as he looked Harry over for injuries.

“Nonsense, Susan is the Slapper. I’m the Crier.”

“I seem to recall someone slapping Ron last year…” Roger muttered sideways to Neville, who smiled crookedly at him, dark circles under his eyes.

“You.. aren’t going to cry on me are you?” Harry asked the attached blonde warily, a hand coming up to pat her on the back. He got a sniffled “maybe” in reply. 

One girl down, Harry eyed Susan over Hannah’s shoulder. She glared back. “I should slap you. Violence should never be the first step in solving a problem, but Merlin’s Beard, it’s the only thing you respect Harry James Potter!” 

“Would it make you feel better?” he wondered. She couldn’t slap him any harder than Masky whapping the back of his head after doing something stupid. Like letting his prey run off down the street screaming about being stabbed.. The man had been a lot less drunk than Boy thought and awfully fast for a guy with his guts falling out. Lesson learned. Hamstrings first.

“...no. Maybe. Briefly. No.”

“I have gifts?”

Susan tossed her head, making her long blonde hair swirl. “I do not accept _bribes_.”

Hannah giggled, a trifle wetly, but giggled nonetheless, and released Harry from her hug. Ernie rolled his eyes and changed seats so that Harry could sit next to Neville like usual, though there was a brief moment of uncomfortable silence as Harry and Neville eyed each other.

“Wasn’t my fault, I got held up by Lockart and mis-”

“I TOLD you!” triumphantly yelling. Ernie blushed as he realized just how loud he’d been and coughed into a hand. “...I told them that was probably what happened, but you know how girls like to worry.”

Ernie winced as said girls turned to scowl at him. He was suddenly re-thinking his idea of sitting between them.

Harry just snickered. He pulled his backpack onto his lap and started to dig through it. The first thing he pulled out, oddly enough, was a positively ancient clothing-iron made of actual cast-iron with a hinged body that was intended to hold live coals. That was how it stayed hot while smoothing out wrinkles in clothes. He passed that to Neville. 

“Hold that for a sec.”

Neville blinked down at the heavy item, and eventually he opened it up as Harry then dug out a sheaf of rolled up papers and a paper bag to pass out his Christmas gifts.

A teeny tiny red snake nestled among chunks of charcoal squeaked up at him and Neville cracked an equally tiny smile. She _was_ kind of cute…

“I didn’t know what the fuck to get you all since I don’t shop in Diagon, but everyone likes candy right? So I got a bunch of Muggle candy for sharing and swapping.” Everyone got some sort of candy; Pop Rocks and Circus Peanuts and Tootsie rolls, all very American just in case they knew the local Muggle stuff.

Boy may or may not have raided Toby’s and Laff’s ‘secret’ collections. And if he had, he’d be hundreds of miles away the time they noticed. Laff needed to know where he was going in order to teleport there, thankfully.

So that and a special charcoal drawing for each of them without a single monster or speck of blood to be found. It had hurt Boy’s brain to sketch out the cutest kitten he could imagine for Hannah, while Susan was gifted a drawing of puppy. A flying raven for Ernie, a bat for Roger. Neville got Harry’s favorite, a tree with long twisting branches and a badger hiding among the tangled roots. 

All perfectly normal things that shouldn’t be at all creepy and he could almost be offended by the surprise on their faces. Except since they had all at one point or another peeked into his sketchbooks of shadowy monsters and evil-eyed mutants, he couldn’t really blame them either.

“Good holiday Nev?” Cautiously, as Neville had yet to do more than give a polite thank you, handing Mimi and her new home back to Harry in exchange for the goodies.

“I’ve been officially forbidden to have anything to do with you, by my Grandmother.”

“Oh.” Crap. What the fuck did you say to that?

Susan exchanged a glance with Ernie, Hannah deciding it was best to coo over her adorable picture of a kitten sleeping in a flower pot, butterfly perched on a tiny pointed ear, pointing out all the tiny details to Roger who tried to look interested.

“...so…” Harry tried to ask the obvious question on all their minds.

Neville shrugged a shoulder, which did nothing to clear the matter since he didn’t look too thrilled to be defying the edict either. 

“We should let the prefects know you made it,” Susan interrupted the awkwardness. “And let Cedric know, since he was helping us look for you. And.. err... Flint? That way they won’t spend the rest of the day worrying, right Hannah?”

“Err… right. Yes! That would be such a nice thing to do!” Hannah exclaimed just a bit too enthusiastically as she rolled her present up in a tidy bundle.

Ernie found himself pulled to his feet by the blondes on either side of him. He was pushed out of the compartment, and after an intense stare from Susan, Roger meekly followed after. That left Harry and Neville all alone for a chat they probably should have had weeks ago but.. Lockhart.

Fucker was dead and still ruining Harry’s life. 

After a moment’s consideration, Harry switched to the other bench seat so that he could see Neville clearly. The two eyed each other again for a longer, even more awkward moment. 

“You’re still here,” Harry pointed out. He instantly felt like smacking himself because how fucking obvious was that? 

“Yeah.”

“...come on Nev, talk to me. You’re my friend, and I don’t want.. I’m not sure I can.. What do you want me to do?” 

Neville looked down at his hands, shoulders hunching. 

Boy wondered what Eyeless would say. Get technical, prob’ly. Maybe Liu? No.. No, wait, Masky had talked about it once and had made more sense than anything Toby had tried. “Do you know the phrase ‘blood is thicker than water’? It’s a Muggle thing, but you might know it too.”

“It means family is always more important than your friends.” 

“That’s what most people think, but the quote is actually ‘Blood of the covenant is thicker than the waters of the womb.’ That’s exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks it means. ‘Cause just being related to someone doesn’t make them a good person who looks out for you. All my brothers are adopted, we all chose each other over any family we have out there... wherever.”

Harry paused a moment to sift through his thoughts. “I don’t.. exactly.. remember the people I stayed with after the Voldemort thing. When I was a baby I mean. I do remember I wanted to go with someone, _anyone_ , who wasn’t them, and when I found my brothers I was utterly thrilled. I chose them over my family and now they are my family. Just like.. You aren’t my friend, not like Hannah and Ernie or Justin was. Is. You’re my brother because I choose you to be.”

Harry held out his hand towards Neville, who at last had looked up from his hands and was watching Harry warily. “So… Brothers by covenant? I’ll never leave you behind, or try to kill you. Brothers are for life and death. If.. you want to be?”

Neville stared blankly.


	20. Ohai

Harry Potter’s day started at dawn, if he wanted to go out with the running group that is. Roll out of bed and drag on some jeans and a hoodie and tumble out to the Common Room. It was mostly the Quidditch team, and a few older students trying not to get too bogged down with exams, no one really awake enough to say more than a couple words in greeting. Unless you were Cedric, who was one of those _morning people_. He usually managed to stay quiet so as to not get lynched though.

One lap around the lake, two if they started to feel perky and the weather was nice enough.

Back to the dorm for a shower and change into the school uniform. 

Breakfast.

Classes. 

Lunch, grab a sandwich and go. Perhaps explore a hall or two while snacking, stretch out his legs after sitting at a fucking desk for hours at a time.

More classes. Learn spell, practice spell, write an essay about spell. Rinse and repeat.

Dinner.

Free time for homework and detentions. So many detentions. Not as many as last year but still far above average.

Bedtime, Harry promising once more to keep his curtains completely closed so as to keep the eerie red glow to a minimum.

Harry would wake up at midnight for an hour or so of peace and quiet, to either read or sketch. Occasionally he’d keep Ernie company though that was happening less and less often as Ernie slowly got over the Polyjuice thing.

Then the day would start over again, unchanging until the weekend for two days of more homework, the occasional beater practice, and harassing the Gryffindors.

Harry was bored out of his _fucking mind_ and ready to _hang himself_.

Even Gryffindor-baiting was getting harder these days. The Lions seemed to finally gotten it beaten into their thick skulls that brawling with Harry was a bad idea, and Harry couldn’t even claim credit for that. For some reason, the other students actually cared about their lost points and detentions.. Weird.

Looking for something to do, anything really, Harry resorted to following the youngest Weasley around. The little girl was always skulking about the Castle, acting like a proper Lion around her friends then slipping off to corners unknown when their backs were turned. Going quiet and serious faced as she tiptoed away from the crowds.

A little like Harry himself did. Sort of. To the continued exasperation of his Hufflepuffs. 

Maybe it was a little creepy even for Harry to be tailing a little girl all over the school to figure out what she was up to... Other than just being sick and tired of her four brothers lurking over her shoulders, the spoiled brat. Harry didn’t understand why she’d want to avoid her siblings, Boy would have given his fingernails to have HIS brothers with him.

Hmmf.

He didn’t stalk her _every_ day, he did have things to do. And sometimes Harry missed her even with her schedule noted down in his sketchbook, or she spent all day behaving like a perfectly normal little girl. Well, other than starting to look like she had one foot in the grave. Almost as if something was sucking away her spirit.

Or some _one_. 

Harry perked up a little at the thought of finding a Proxy-like being in school, now THAT would be fun! Would they be a friend or foe? Someone to take home to Slender? Someone he’d have to battle and prove his worth to? 

An event to look forward to later no doubt. Right now all he had was a wave of water cascading down the hall towards the stairs and a sprinting redhead vanishing down the other end of the hallway. Oh, and the sobbing.

Th’ fuck?

Everyone knew there was a ghost in that particular bathroom, a very moody girl ghost according to Susan and Hannah, one who tended to turn all the faucets on when upset. The Moaning Turtle? That couldn’t be right. Her name escaped him at the moment but the poor thing sounded like a dying cat.

Slowly because he didn’t want to explain a wet robe when the flood was eventually discovered, Harry waded through the deepening puddle to poke his head into the bathroom. 

“Hello?” 

A blue-ish girl with long pigtails and glasses looked up from her hands to blink at him rapidly, wails trailing off. She sniffled a few times more, then-“you’re not supposed to be here!”

“Yeah but.. I saw the Gryffindor girl running off like the hounds of hell were after her, and heard you crying. She curse you?”

“You saw her? She threw a book at me! Sent it sailing straight through my head as if I was nothing!” The ghost started crying again, the wails echoing around the tiled room.

“That fucking sucks. The book thing I mean. People really should be nicer to ghosts,” Harry eased into the bathroom, not wanting to get caught in the hallway. Wow, nice bathroom. The sink set up alone looked like a fancy fountain, complete with gushing water spilling out across the floor and out the door.

“They should! I’ve already died, isn’t that enough?” Turtle seemed to forget her upset all of a sudden, batting her eyes at Harry now as she drifted closer. Her voice was high pitched, more like a cartoon of a girl than a real one.

“Exactly. And being a ghost you’ve probably seen a lot of cool stuff and know a lot of secrets about the school. Being dead makes you more fucking awesome, not less.” Unless you were Professor Binns, that guy needed to give it up and pass over to the other side. 

Turtle giggled, sidling up to him. “You’re pretty cute, even with that horrid scar on your face. You can come by anytime and maybe I’ll share some secrets with you.”

Harry’s turn to blink now, mildly offended. There was nothing wrong with his scar! It gave him character! “...so she threw a book at you? It was the littlest Weasley, red-haired and looks like she’s about to croak? Maybe you’ll have a roommate soon if you’re lucky.”

The ghost, Moaning… Gertle? sighed wistfully. “I’d even share my toilet stall with her if it meant having some company. It gets awfully lonely in here…” She was almost touching his shoulder now, a familiar coldness washing over Harry like when BEN was in a less tangible form at home.

“Where’s it now?”

“What?”

“The book that she threw at you.” Harry turned his head to find them nose to nose. The ghost girl was frowning at him, not looking nearly so flirty as she had moments before. She studied the long scar cutting down the side of his face and the red eye. Realization slowly took over the flirtatious smile.

“..you’re… you’re not human, are you?” 

“Err… I’m a wizard?” Wizards didn’t seem all that human… Sidhe maybe? Watered down Sidhe.

The ghost’s watery eyes went big behind her thick glasses. She raised a shaking hand and pointed at the giant fountain of a sink. “It’s over there. Take it! Take it and get out! GET OUT!”

Harry stared in astonishment as Myrtle, yeah that was her name, opened her mouth and started screaming even louder than earlier. People were so fucking rude, see if Harry tried to be nice to someone again any time soon! Even the ghosts here had some serious attitude! Even the Fat Friar avoided Harry in the Hufflepuff common room.

Harry muttered to himself, sloshing back through the water towards the door. There was a small book floating near the fountain, he’d missed it on the way in somehow, but might as well grab it now. Why not? Looked like one of his actually, but more pristine.

He was going to be pissed if Baby Weasley found one of his fake diaries and chucked it into the bathroom to be ruined. He had worked hard on those! Really hard! Do you know how difficult it was to make a book look like it was about to fall apart without it _actually_ falling to pieces?

That was on normal books too, Wizarding books came with charms to keep damage to a minimum, so THAT had been even more fun to work around. Ugh.

Harry held the book out to the side, letting the water drip off. It was a small leather journal, black with a small TMR on the bottom. Copper pieces protecting the corners. Yeah, not one of Harry’s journals about Slender Man, written from different viewpoints.

Making the Slender Man mythos wizard-friendly had been, without any sarcasm, hilarious. His brothers had helped of course, binge reading all the fairy tales Harry had gotten off his friends and making lists of common themes and archetypes. Slender Man needed to stay Slender Man, they didn’t want to make another knock-off Slendy and have to defend their territory against him. 

(Slender had seen enough of those, thank you very much, and the world only needed ONE Splendor Man. Though a Slender Girl would be highly amusing. Maybe.)

Once all the silliness had gotten out of their systems, the boys (with the help of their resident pure blood-wannabe-dictator) had come up with the slightly believable tale of an ancient Trial of Magic, used by Wizards hundreds of years ago as a sort of test to prove your magical worth.

The Slender Man, a faceless entity of pure magic that would challenge your magical skills and intelligence. If you failed, by dying or taking too long, he ate your sanity, magic, and your flesh. 

_If_ you managed to find the correct summons, for it was a closely guarded secret, and _if_ you were able to do it correctly, one mistake would make the whole thing fall to pieces, he could be called upon by anyone and anywhere. But he wouldn’t show up immediately so you had to be on your guard. Watch the shadows, listen carefully, be alert. It could be days before he showed up, it could be minutes. The more power you put into the spell, the better the trial. That it became more _dangerous_ didn’t need to be mentioned. 

The goal was to find and destroy the runes of the Slender Man, before he found you. The more taken down, the more powerful he’d be as the spell became more concentrated, but that was the fun of it all. Basically a very stressful game of Tag, though Masky and Hoody both protested this oversimplification. (Come on, that’s what it was.)

All you had to lose was your mind and magic but in return you got prestige. For some wizards that was all that mattered. Especially when they felt they had something to prove.. Like Halfbloods and the Muggleborn.

Harry (and his brothers) thought that survival was slightly more important than a reputation, but they were in the minority apparently. Voldemort, bored enough to converse with the abomination, told him he was a foolish child and reputation was EVERYTHING to actual Wizards.

Which.. Explained a lot really.

Harry’s was in tatters. 

Didn’t help when he was caught coming out of the girls’ bathroom.

“...s’up Professor?”

God he wished he could do that with his eyebrow. With the slightest of motions, Professor Snape’s disdain and disgust was made achingly clear and Harry was so jealous.


	21. Art Critics

Harry tossed his backpack towards the his bed and then flopped down face first onto Roger’s because it was right there next to the door and going all the way across the room right now was too big of a task.

Classes were done for the day, dinner was in an hour, and Neville was stuck in a meeting with Professor McGonagall about his recent behavior and blah blah blah..

Harry whined into the blankets. 

He was borrrrrrrred. 

He didn’t want to talk about classwork or the new rumors about Harry being an anim.. Animalgot.. Animag.. A shapeshifter that was attacking students when they were alone in the halls. 

Now that would be fun. Turning into a dog wouldn’t be too terrible. Or maybe a hawk. Voldemort was a snake because that’s what Slender had decided fit him best, did that mean Harry would be a snake too because of the soul thing? Harry liked snakes but didn’t really want to be a snake. He preferred having all his very useful limbs.

Hah. Harry should turn into a badger. That would be fucking awesome! 

Especially since he’d shown his room-mates what an American badger looked like compared to a sweet-faced European badger. That had been a funny night and they’d all agreed it went well with his American accent. Harry had somehow ended up with a million scarves and hats with the Hufflepuff emblem and colors after that too which was odd but nice at the same time.

But for now Ernie and Roger were putting away their books and bags while Harry stubbornly ignored Roger’s poking at his head to make him move. He didn’t need to move for Roger to get into his trunk, so the boy could just tolerate Harry for now.

Bored bored bored. 

Harry lifted his head from the bed only after the other boys had left. (Zachariah Smith of the sainted Hufflepuff Bloodline didn’t even bother speaking with them anymore. He and Sally-Ann both kept their distance which the others gossiped about far too much in Harry’s opinion.)

Should he go climb the Astronomy tower? Nah.. too cold. Browse the library? No, the Lions were camping out there lately surrounded by towers of books. Hermione was looking a little frazzled lately and was often hissing at them to be quiet.

Go outside? Again too cold. Stalk Weasley? She was back to being boringly normal. Take a nap? He’d slept so much lately Harry wasn’t sure he’d ever be tired again. Draw? Write? Spell practice? 

Ugh. 

Harry crawled over the edge of the bed and let himself tumble to the floor. From there to his bag where it had fallen within a few feet of his own bed. He had that journal from Myrtle, he could rough it up and start a new secret story. Though the other six had been really difficult, needing them to sound like different people and different situations but all following the same spell guidelines. 

It was all some very complicated stuff! But Harry just wanted to set something on fire, and there was no harm in getting it ready for the collection.

Too bad the journal didn’t feel like being set on fire.

Harry’s singed eyebrows drew a few odd looks but all Ernie asked was “do we have to replace the curtains again?” The last time they’d tried out a mending spell had left the material in threads all over the floor, which was pretty much the opposite of what they’d wanted to happen. Household charms were surprisingly tricky to get a handle on, it was great.

But Harry just flapped a hand at him, burnt fingertips of his left hand stuck into his mouth in an attempt to soothe them. 

Speaking of tricky charms, his new journal was shielded to the teeth with protections. Water hadn’t damaged it, fire had left it untouched. Harry had tried to rip some pages out and received a nasty papercut on his unburnt hand. He’d tried to stab it with his pocket knife and it had bent the blade! 

Why on earth would someone protect a journal that didn’t even lock?

His go-to Hufflepuff was just ahead so Harry left his pack to weave through the crowd until he caught up, legs trying to take longer steps in order to keep up. Cedric was nice enough to slow down a little, looking down at Harry curiously.

“How do you find out what spells are on stuff?”

“There are spells you can cast that would let you kn- _why_?” 

Harry rolled his eyes at the sudden suspicion, flinching as the lightly toasted skin of his forehead also moved. “I just want to see what protection spells are on my notebook, jeez. I’m not trying to do anything bad!”

Cedric eyed him for a moment longer. “As I said, there are spells you can cast to detect charms or curses, but most of them will only reveal spells if you know them.”

“What the fuck is the point of that?”

Cedric patted Harry on the back consolingly. And perhaps a bit condescendingly. “To keep the little scamps like you from getting into trouble. And no, I’m not telling you what the spells are because I would like us to have _some_ House Points at the end of the year.”

The wink did not make Harry feel any better as he scowled up at Cedric. “You suck.”

“Just looking out for you young ones that’s all,” Cedric grinned. 

“For fucks sake..You’re not that much fucking older than me!”

“Old enough. Scoot along now and try to behave.”

Harry rolled his eyes a second time and even harder but he took the hint and joined the rest of his year at the table. Dinner meant Neville was with the Lions and that sucked, because instead of letting Harry be weird they wanted to know why Harry was dribbling gravy into his journal. 

“Cause the fucking thing refuses to be damaged.” Stains weren’t exactly damage and he was curious to see what would happen.

“...o ...k.”

Harry was using his fork to make trails in the gravy so it wasn’t just some random splotch, he didn’t see what the problem was. While he was at it, he might as well go the full distance and use all the sauces. They weren’t any harder to work with than blood- just less satisfying. 

All his efforts were wasted which was even more frustrating, every splatter and dribble had vanished without a trace by the time Harry got back to the Commons for curfew. 

“What if I WANTED it to be stained,” he whined at Ernie.

“Then you should have found a normal book I guess,” Ernie shrugged a shoulder. For some reason the Hufflepuff was checking all the bed curtains. Almost as if he expected them to be damaged or something. Weird. 

Harry flipped through the cream colored pages. “This is stupid. Is it going to eat whatever I write in it too? How does it know the difference between writing and stains?”

“Probably goes by if the liquid is ink or something. Anything else it just vanishes which makes sense, since no one uses cranberry sauce to write their notes.” Ernie tilted his head a bit and corrected himself. “No sane person uses cranberry sauce to write their notes.”

If Harry kept rolling his eyes this much he was going to give himself a headache and then he’d be even more miserable. “There’s no artistry in your soul, you know that? So what if I want to use food to write with? It needs to stop fucking eating everything I do!”

“Have you tried to use.. You know.. Actual ink?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

It was sometime around midnight, while the rest of his roomates slept, that Harry made a breakthrough on the riddle. He took too many naps during the day to sleep through the night properly, so he just closed his curtains and conjured a few balls of lights. Or ‘Tinkerbells’ as Toby called them. 

The journal was still puzzling him, and Harry flipped through the once more perfectly blank pages. It had eaten everything Harry had tried, the splotches and doodles and homework prompts. _Everything._

Well.. only one last thing to do. (Other than using plain ink but it already been covered numerous times that Harry was a stubborn ass, and he just didn’t want to.)

Using his pocket knife Harry cut into the fingertip of his pinky and let the blood drip down onto the page. Using his other hand he smeared the droplets into words. Nothing important, just.. Some random letters. Really. 

Unlike the other times when it took up to an hour for the stains to vanish, the blood barely lasted long enough for Harry to write with it before it seeped away into the book. And for the first time all day, the book responded to him.

_"Judging by your writing ability I had thought you were at least a First Year, but your inability to use proper writing materials is quite concerning. Have you thought of checking in with the castle's Mediwitch for an evaluation?"_

Well, wasn’t that just fucking dandy, his journal was a fucking snob.


	22. Shenanigans

Harry was having the oddest dreams lately. Not even dreams, there was no plot or visuals, it was just a fucking strange sensation of icy hands on his brain. Not his _head_ , his _brain_. Cold, clammy fingers trying to dig themselves into his thoughts and Harry always woke up with his pinky throbbing painfully. 

Harry wasn’t stupid. All the time.

He’d fallen into the habit of talking to Tom throughout the day (and night), the snarky book giving him new insights on how to work around school rules and the teachers. Dragging the journal out from beneath his pillow, Harry scribbled sideways across the page-

_knock it off!_

On the opposite page in a much more elegeant hand came the reply-

_I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do try to get some sleep, you have class in a couple hours._

_asshole_

Harry underscored the word deeply. And then circled it. Ugh. 

Harry rubbed at his face, replacing the book back under his pillow. It was a convenient spot for when he got up at midnight, who the fuck would want to go back and forth from his trunk in the middle of the night? Tom was always willing to chat too, he never seemed to sleep. Well he was a book after all. 

Talking to Tom, a prick he might be, was helping alleviate Harry’s boredom. Harry hated to be bored. Loathed it. With Professor Snape and McDonald suddenly teaming up and doing their best to separate Harry and Neville, the boredom was really starting to get to him.

If Harry wasn’t in detention, then Neville was. Harry had gotten roped into a remedial Transfiguration tutoring because he was flunking the class (fucking cranky old bat) then Neville got pushed into Potions tutoring. (NOT with Professor Snape, but even worse - with Hermione.)

Then there was homework club, and while Harry was.. slightly.. willing to give up his Quidditch lessons if it meant more time to spend with Neville, everyone else had (loudly) protested.

Harry had never noticed that he picked on the Lions a lot less after he’d spent some time in the air with Captain Flint, but according to his year mates he’d gotten a lot less aggressive ever since. It was always amusing to see what people would put up with in order to make their lives easier. Blaise wasn’t exactly welcome in the small group but he was tolerated to an extent.

Harry rolled over and buried his head in his arms. Wasn’t even dawn yet. He should get some sleep. Or.. Harry peeked over his arm. Or he could go do something fun. Best time for it really, everyone would be asleep at this time. He was already awake and he’d slept through the night for a change, soooo… yeah. Why not?

It was a little awkward getting out of bed and getting dressed while keeping his right eye closed but he was getting used to it. He could hear the sleep-heavy breathing of the other boys if he listened, so it was just him. And Tom. He had no reason to shove the book into his hoodie pocket other than Harry liked having it close at hand. 

Probably an effect of accidentally blood-bonding with the stupid thing. He’d have to ask Slender about it when he went home.

The commons room was quiet, all the windows closed and the fire banked down low. Harry moved slowly and quietly so as to not wake the portraits and eased the door to the giant beer barrel open. You’d think there would have been a warning system placed ages ago if students weren’t supposed to leave their house in the middle of the night, but Harry wouldn’t complain.

That’s when Harry was struck with the most brilliant idea ever.

It was sheer _genius._

Harry was so, so glad he’d thought to bring his cloak along, and not just because the halls got awfully cold at night for some reason. Being able to cover his face helped a LOT when he had to sneak past a portrait not quite asleep yet not awake enough to call for backup.

Tiptoe.. Sneak.. Creep.. Crawl.. Harry had two hours to complete his goal of getting from the Basement to the Gryffindor Tower upstairs. He’d figure out later how he was going to get out of the Lions Den. Neville would surely have an idea or two. Hopefully. Honestly, what did Neville expect Harry to do when he’d let slip the password? 

Not to wake up to see Harry crouched at the foot of his bed that’s for damned sure. Neville shoved himself out of the bed with a flailing squeal, tumbling through the curtains and to the floor with a bruising thud. 

Harry peered through the gap down at him, taking care to stay in the corner where the angle kept the other boys from seeing him if they got up. He waggled his fingers in a cheerful wave. 

Neville looked less than amused.

Actually, he looked a little horrified.

Should Harry be offended?

Naah. He’d meant to surprise Neville. And while Harry didn't think much of the other three Gryffindor boys, he was going to be in a very tight spot if he got caught. Between Harry and the exit was going to be a hell of a lot of Lions bearing a grudge. 

Why had this been a good idea again?

Ah yes, surprising Neville.

There were sleepy complaints from the other beds but Ron and.. uhh… the other... two… never got up before they had to. Harry knew that much from Neville talking about how he got up early every day now, not just for the running group. It was just less of a hassle that way. 

Harry hugged his legs to his chest and tried to be as small as possible as Neville climbed back up, pointing a finger at Harry and furiously mouthing-

_What are you doing here?!_

Harry just grinned at him. 

_Surprise!_

Neville threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, before burying them in his hair and tugging.

_NOW WHAT?_

Harry shrugged. 

_Leave?_

_HOW?_

_Walk?_

Harry was definitely doing this again sometime. This was hilarious. 

Neville tugged on his hair some more. Pointing at Harry again-

_Stay. Here._

Harry’s grin just made Neville glare. He looked between the curtains and very carefully closed them behind him as he climbed off the bed the more natural way. Harry could hear him going through his trunk and getting dressed, Harry was completely willing to sit and wait. Everything had so far gone perfectly, but he still needed Neville to get him out in one piece now that there was potentially other people up and about.

He should have been nicer about waking Neville up. Maybe.

Neville cracked the curtains open, hair sticking up all over the place, and beckoned Harry to follow him. Harry crept off the bed and made sure to walk on the carpeted area towards the door. It was funny to watch Neville continue to freak out, carrying his own boots in one hand and cloak in the other and trying at the same time to flatten his bed hair. He kept smacking himself in the head with his boots and Harry was having a hard time muting his laughter.

Out in the hallway Neville was brave enough to start hissing “are you _insane?_ They’ll kill you! They might honestly kill you! Or worse! Sic the Weasley twins on you!”

“Come on Nev, live a little! We should definitely try to sneak into the Slytherin dorm next. Just imagine Draco’s face if he woke up seeing us!”

Neville’s dirty look didn’t bother Harry at all, this was too good of a prank. And if finished correctly, no one would even know he’d been here! He did shoo Neville down the staircase ahead of him juuuust in case there were actually morning people in this den of layabouts.

Harry even pulled the hood of his cloak back up, pulling it down low over his right eye. See? He was cautious when he needed to be! 

“You are going to get us mauled. Or maimed. Or murdered.” Neville continued to mutter frantically under his breath. There was a couple of people in the red and gold themed commons, but only one by the portrait door. Oh hey, was that Hermione over at the table?

People called Harry insane, but he wasn’t the one doing _homework_ before _breakfast_.

Unlike Neville who had come to a fretful stop at the foot of the stairs, Harry hit the main floor and kept moving with a quick, purposeful stride. Never look like you were trying to hide something, never look like you were trying to be stealthy when you had potential witnesses.. Harry was practically out the door before the oldest Weaselly looked up from his letter, frowning at Harry as he pushed the portrait-door open.

“Where are..”

“RUNNING CLUB,” Neville all but shouted as he finally caught up to Harry and shoved him the rest of the way out. “WITH THE HUFFLEPUFFS. BYE PERCY.”

“..smooth.”

“Shut. Up.”

Neville kept them both moving till the hallway split, only then did he feel safe enough to stop long enough to put his boots on. The stone floor was _freezing_. “You are the WORST person I have ever met. What were you DOING up there? What if you had been CAUGHT?”

“Detention I guess. Come on Nev, what’s the harm? There’s no real rule about NOT mixing houses or you’d have been thrown out of Hufflepuff fucking ages ago.”

“Oh yeah? What about curfew? Don’t try to tell me you came along to visit after.. before..”

“See, you don’t even know when curfew ends! No harm done!”

Neville huffed. Boots firmly laced, now he could pull his cloak around his shoulders. “It ends at _six_ and you know it!” 

“Mmm… Did I?”

“I hate you.”

Harry threw an arm over his shoulders and grinned. “You love me. Let’s go!”

_“Where?”_

“Dunno yet. But I’m sure wherever we end up is bound to be fascinating.”

“Just as long as it’s not the dungeons. I can not face any sort of Slytherin this early in the morning. Before _breakfast_.”

“Aww…”


	23. You win some

They did not end up in the dungeons with the Slytherins, which was such a pity. 

“You know we could actually go meet up with the group. Like we usually do. ”

“Don’t be a fucking spoilsport. I want to do something fun. This is a gigantic magic castle with secret hallways and hidden basements, there has to be more stuff to find if we go looking for it.”

Harry walked down the hallway trailing his fingers over the stone, looking for a change in texture or a seam that shouldn’t be there. 

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Breakfast won’t be up for another… hour? Let’s go down.”

“I’m not going to the Dungeons.”

“Let’s see if we can get into the Catacombs.”

“And piss off Professor Flitwick? The one of two, maybe three, teachers not against you? Yeah that’s a great idea. Just as good as you sneaking up to the tower in the middle of the night.”

“Great! Let’s go!”

Neville squinted at Harry, before deciding that Harry understood the sarcasm perfectly, he was just choosing to pretend otherwise. The toothy grin was all the evidence Neville needed.

It took them almost half an hour to find the hidden entrance that led to the second basement (“The Catacombs!”), it had been very effectively re-sealed by Flitwick after their first (and so far only) exploration. Harry poked at the barrier with the tip of his wand. It felt perfectly solid... This was definitely where the door should be, the funky hat-shaped stone on the floor said so, but..

“It’s so fucking real.”

“That’s kind of the point?”

Harry turned and poked Neville in the side with the wand. He jerked it away as Neville grabbed for the stick and did it a second time. “How do people break wards?”

“You are NOT breaking the ward, he’s a Teacher!” Neville grabbed for the wand again, this time getting a hold near the middle. “Gimme that!”

“It’s mine!”

“You don’t even use it half the time!”

“That doesn’t matter!”

Harry hooked his foot behind Neville’s knee and jerked, making the boy fall hard. Except he had refused to let go of the wand even yet and yanked Harry along with him. 

It was getting harder to wrestle Neville into submission, half because he was getting tired of Harry beating him all the time and half because he was actually learning from the previous bouts and while Harry was more wriggly- Neville was bigger. 

Didn’t mean he won, just meant Harry had to work harder. Making himself comfortable sitting on Neville’s back, Harry pulled the notebook out of his pocket along with half a pencil. “By the way, Tom thinks my wand is broken. ‘Probly wouldn’t work well for you either.” 

“Wands don’t.. Stop taking advice from a book! How do you know it’s not some sort of prank book trying to get you into trouble?”

“You’re just mad I have a talking journal and you don’t.”

Neville groaned, crossing his arms under his head to keep his face off the stone floor. No use trying to make Harry move, he would only end up with even more bruises and still be stuck on the floor. “It belonged to Ginny, it’s probably full of girl talk and hair tips. Maybe you should give it to Hannah so she can stop trying to practice her makeup on you.”

“No. It’s mine.”

“Can we _please_ go to breakfast now?”

“Not till I tell Tom we found the door but can’t get through the force field.”

“The wards?”

“Eh, same thing.”

Neville sighed as heavily as he could what with being squashed into the ground. How could someone so small and skinny be so heavy? Mystery for the ages. He more felt than heard the low hissing and squirmed. “Stop that!”

“Hmm? Tom says there might be some books in the forbidden section of the library…”

Rolling his eyes, Neville tried to wait it out. The less he fussed the quicker Harry would get bored. Then the hissing started up again and it was making Neville’s skin crawl. “Harry!”

“What?”

“You know I don’t understand you when you hiss, and it’s making my bones buzz!”

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“Then stop it!”

“I didn’t-!”

This time the hissing started up _while_ Harry was protesting his sliver of innocence. And Neville suddenly understood why his stomach was vibrating with nerves and not his back. The hissing was coming from under the floor.

Harry was too startled to keep his place as King of the Mountain, falling onto his back as Neville lurched out from under him with real determination. In the back of Harry’s mind was a quote about how Scared-as-Shit was stronger than Mad-as-Hell, but that was kind of beside the current point. 

Himself, he stayed close to the floor. Putting his ear to the cold stone actually and listening hard for more hissing. It had a strange accent and was hard to understand, which was something that had honestly never occured to Harry. Snakes had different languages?

_“Feeeed. Huuungerrr. Kiiiilll.”_

“ _Hello?_ ” He felt only a little odd as he hissed at the stones, but there was obviously something down there if even Neville could hear it. “ _Where are you?_ ”

“ _Anotherrr?_ ”

“ _Come closer, I can barely hear you!_ ”

Neville shuddered. Mimi was a cute little baby snake that squeaked and snored. Harry’s hissing was.. Uhh… hissier. A sigh with almost audible words hidden in the rush of air. This new hissing? So low and deep that it made Neville’s bones ache and he didn’t like it even a little bit.

“Harry, nothing good ever came from listening to strange voices..”

“ _SsssSSs_ sss too you don’t I?”

“I’m serious! This is creepy! Something in the floor is hissing at us and I don’t think we should stick around to see what it does next. We should tell a teacher.”

Harry no longer had to lay down with his ear to the floor, what had to be one hell of a snake was right below and loud enough he could sit back. He blinked at Neville slowly. “And tell them… what? That we think a snake is trapped beneath the stone in the dungeons? What the fuck do you think the teachers are going to do?”

“I.. but.. Sprout would listen to us!” Maybe. Possibly. Slightly. 

Harry smirked, dusting the dirt off his knees as he stood up. “No one will believe us without some fucking proof, and I’m just being a good person by helping a trapped animal. You want to leave the poor bastard stuck in the floor? ‘Sides I learned a new spell. It’s cool.”

“Well...” If he knew that look in Harry’s eyes, it was NOT a new cleaning spell. While it had been amusing to see Ron get all roughed up and Draco’s robe fall to pieces, this was going to be something else. But that look was the same look Harry got when he played as a Beater in a slapped-together Quidditch match.

Harry pulled out his wand and eyed it for a moment. Tom said he should use it more often, that it was strange for a wand to work so hard against their owner.. And so they should do some tests.

“Lemme borrow your wand.”

“ABSolutely not.”

“Neeeeeev. It’s just for a moment! I’ve never broken my wand and I fucking hate it. I’ll be a lot more respectful of your private property because I know how important it is to you.” Harry held his hand up, “solemn promise!”

Neville squinted at him suspiciously. Harry had never lied to him so far. “One spell?”

“One and only one, right now. Then I will hand it over and that will be that. Pleaaaaase?”

Harry watched as Neville sloooooowly pulled out his wand out of a pocket and looked it over. Clean and well polished, the small nicks and scratches made it look well used and comfortable. Harry felt his fingers twitched but he did his best to keep still and look hopeful. “I’ll give you mine too, a fair trade!”

Rolling his eyes, Neville held out his wand handle first. “Yeah, a priceless family heirloom for one you try to leave behind as often as possible. Fair trade my.. a-ass.”

Awww, Harry beamed at him for using a swear word. He took the wand and tossed his own over, missing the odd expression cross over Neville’s face as he waved the stick around. Harry’s new toy (don’t worry he really would give it back! Eventually) felt warm in his hand and he pointed it at the floor gleefully. 

“Just don-”

“CONFRINGO!”

He hadn’t expected anything to happen, different wand or not, but uhh… 

It was fucking _awesome_.

The floor exploded _everywhere_ as huge chunks of rocks went flying. Harry threw an arm up over his eyes to protect them from the dust and shards, but wasn’t able to avoid the large stone that hit him in the chest with a sharp crack.

Something huge and angry rose out of the dust and particles, shrieking in pain and confusion as it flailed around, smacking it’s large head on either side of the hallway before landing with a resounding _thud_ between Harry and Neville. 

Harry back-peddled rapidly as the beast roared.


	24. You lose some

“...you killed it.” Neville pointed out the obvious before he was struck with another coughing fit. Mindful of his broken rib(s), Harry carefully moved closer to the monster of a snake now blocking the corridor. And most of the body was still in the floor! It was HUGE!

And very, very dead with a gaping hole at the base of its skull. The jaw gaped open from its final hiss before the life had drained out of it.

Harry had expected Neville’s wand to act like his own, not like some sort of super-wand! He thought maybe he’d crack the stone or something just to be able to tell Tom he’d tried. Harry looked down at the stick in his hand then back to the poor snake.

Just the head was bigger than Harry’s whole body, and when he wiped off the thick layer of powdered stone from its neck, the scales shone a deep emerald. 

“What the everloving fuck is your wand made of?” Harry felt a little bad.. he hadn’t meant to kill it. He LIKED snakes. Harry would have warned it to move away if he’d thought he could smash the floor to bits with a _wand_. His barely let him light a candle!

“It’s just a regular wand, it’s just.. wood and.. hair.” Neville wheezed, but didn’t start coughing again. He’d been further back than Harry, but not by much. Shrapnel had struck him on the forehead near his hairline and blood was slowly trickling down the side of his face. 

Neville felt his knees buckle and he found himself sitting on the floor to stare blankly at the very large and now very dusty head sitting in a puddle of its own blood. It had all happened so suddenly that he could barely wrap his mind around it. Trading wands, the floor exploding, the dead monster.. It was almost too much.

Harry however was already past all that and was poking at the mouth, wondering just how big of a prey it could have eaten. If it had the typical hinged jaw… it might have been able to eat an elephant! Terrifying. The teeth on the snake were almost as long as Harry’s arm, longer in the far back, but relatively tiny in the very front. As he tried to see how firmly attached a mid-sized tooth was-

“What do you think it was?”

“Alive.”

And that was where the Potions Master and a handful of Slytherins found them, investigating the gawd awful noise. Neville sitting on the floor in obvious shock, and Harry with his hands inside the mouth of a monstrous sized snake in the ruined hallway. One of the girls outright fainted at the sight, falling into the arms of her equally stunned friend.  
It was the first time for Harry to witness Snape being struck speechless. The look of shock and horror was an absolute gift. Harry would have waved but his sleeve had gotten caught on a tooth and he was a little stuck,so he settled for a cheerful “ ‘sup Professor?”

Neville didn’t even bother with a greeting, he merely looked up at the tall man and waved a hand at the bundle of insanity as if asking “ _do you see what I have to put up with_?” 

Because… this was so utterly Harry it was ridiculous. Neville could still clearly remember the various creatures the pair had run into inside the Forbidden Forest. The large spider that had chased them up a tree and nearly bitten Neville’s foot off. The invisible creature that Harry had sworn looked like a skinny horse with bat wings. Neville had personally watched Harry stalk and kill a large stag with nothing but a pocket knife! And now this! 

Killing a forty foot snake was not unreasonable, just… unexpected in placement. And timing.

Snape steadied himself, nostrils flaring as he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The half-dozen students with him were less unflappable, two of them were propping up the girl who’d fainted and were trying to revive her. Captain Flint had his wand out and pointed at the monster, mouth gaping open as he looked from Harry, to Snape, to the Monster.. 

“Merlin’s whiskers..” someone whispered from the group. 

Neville flinched as Snape pulled out his wand and waved it over Neville. The pain on his head faded away and he felt a lot less grimey but he couldn't bring himself to stand yet. Until Snape hauled him up that is, and pushed him towards the group. 

“Mr. Orlan, Miss Brunwick, take Mr. Longbottom and Miss Fields to the infirmary! You three guard the hallway, let no one pass unless they are a teacher. _Mr. Potter_...”

Harry looked up from where he was still trying to get free of the teeth. The fangs had this slight backwards curve that kept him from pulling straight out, but if he followed the curve then he risked getting his arm sliced open… There was an oily sheen to the teeth that made him not want to risk it, fast healing or no.

“Sorry, little stuck here.” 

“ _Mr. Potter_ …” Snape said again, teeth grinding together. 

Neville tried to resist getting hustled away, but the Slytherins were 5th years and up, far bigger than him and more than ready to leave. Immediately. His protest of “Harry’s hurt too!” was ignored.

“What was that thing?”

“ _You_ killed _that_? You and the Da.. Potter? You’re _second years_!”

“It was an accident! I.. I think.” 

The Great Hall had just barely opened up for breakfast, there was almost no one in the halls at such an early time. Just as the small group hit the main floor, a series of teachers went running past. In the very back came Hagrid with slow but thundering footsteps. 

“I’m going to be sick..” whimpered the fainter, Miss Fields, putting a hand over her mouth. Neville found himself being yanked along faster towards the hospital wing. 

Harry made an appearance much later, under the arm of his Head of House who was both fretting over the fact he hadn’t mentioned his broken ribs sooner and scolding him for.. She actually couldn’t find a real reason for scolding him. He _technically_ hadn't been anywhere off limits. _Technically_ he hadn’t done anything wrong, other than not realizing how badly the spell would wreck the floor and what student hadn’t accidentally blown something up? _Technically_ he had saved them from having to deal with the monster at some later date..

_Technically_ Harry wasn’t in official trouble, but Sprout was scolding him anyways for being reckless. He didn’t exactly get another detention, but he did have to have a meeting with her later. After classes were done for the day cause who cared if he’d miraculously fought off a monster, this was still a school and there were things to be done.

“I still don’t see why everyone is upset,” the Monster Hunter sulked after Sprout left. “I didn’t mean to kill it, but turns out it’s probably what’s been petrifying people. You’d think people would be happy about me getting rid of their problem.”

Neville was sitting on one of the beds eating breakfast because Pomfrey wanted to make absolute sure he wasn’t concussed. Snape had healed the cut on his head but he wasn’t a mediwitch and head wounds were tricky.

“Maybe it’s because you scared them?”

“What did I do? It was already dead when they showed up!”

“You’re twelve and killed a forty foot basilisk. Most adults wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“God I fucking hate this place…”

Harry got his ribs wrapped, but that was all the nurse could do for him. Pomfrey took his temperature with a glass thermometer that she claimed was a muggle device procured just for him, trying to be reassuring that she was now stocked with items in case he got sick or injured. He was more concerned about her poisoning him with mercury, and just how antique were these other supplies..

Neville saved him some toast. “What did they do with the body?”

“Once they stopped yelling at me and asking fucking stupid questions? Shrunk it down and Hagrid carried it off to be buried. Professor Snape had the biggest hissy fit I’ve ever seen about that.. Guess basilisks are good for potions? By the way, Flitwick said the only reason we weren’t killed straight off is because the damn dust had been so thick we couldn’t see the eyes. And when it had all settled, that dust coated the eyes so thickly it made a barrier, so we should thank our lucky stars to still be walking around. What I want to know is- if looking at it kills people, why is everyone fucking petrified and not dead?”

“Oh yeah..” Neville glanced towards the curtained off area. Colin, Justin, Nearly Headless Nick... “Oh!”

“Mmph?” Harry hoped one of the Hufflepuffs had a snack on them that he could snitch later, it was going to be a long fucking day to only get toast for breakfast. Lunch was hours away!

“Colin had his camera right? Justin was with Sir Nick. Maybe they didn’t get a good look at it because it was through the lens and a ghost.”

“...what about the cat?”

“Hallway was flooded with water wasn’t it? She saw it through the puddle reflection.”

“The same hallway and bathroom Baby Weasley keeps vanishing from? I swear she’s the reason behind all this, I just don’t get fucking how.”

“Weasley’s have a family line going back just as far as mine, neither of us have any Slytherin blood though, so she can’t be the heir,” Neville reasoned. 

“ _If_ you need to be an heir. What if there’s just some random hidden door in the bathroom that opens to anyone, you just have to know it’s there?”

Neville considered this. Ginny Weasley? Siccing a giant snake on the muggleborn and halfbloods? He shook his head. “I can’t see it. The Weasley’s are the biggest Light supporters you can find in the magical world. Her being evil just doesn’t make sense.”

“They say the same about the Potters. Which is why half the school is convinced I’m either a bastard or a Lestrange.” Harry rolled his eyes. He jumped down from the bed and reluctantly pulled Neville’s wand out of his pocket. “You’ll need this for class I guess….”

“Oh. Right.” Harry’s wand was warm and comforting and felt like the most natural thing in the world to hold in his hand. Friendlier by far than his father’s wand. “Did the teachers say anything about you using my wand?” stalling for a moment longer because he really, really didn’t want to give it back. But his Grandmother would hex him stupid if he gave away her beloved son’s wand..

“Flitwick noticed, but he didn’t look like he wanted to ask a lot of questions with the other teachers around. Think he’ll want to later though..” Harry eyed him, a hand held out with the wand. “You know.. We’ll see each other later for lunch. What’s the worst that could fucking happen if we swap for the morning?”

“You blowing up more of the school?”

“..you think?” far too pleased.

They really did need to leave the infirmary, searching for the Catacombs and finding the snake and then dealing with the aftershocks, the morning had flown by. Class would be starting soon and both of them needed to go get their school bags first. 

Neville chewed on his lower lip. “...you’ll be careful?”

“Course! I get that it’s super fucking important to you, being your dad’s wand and all. And have I ever been careless with your things before?”

“....no. Just me.” 

Harry grinned. “Exactly! So you’ve nothing to worry about!”


	25. Menace to Society

“Well that was a disaster!”

“Was I nice?”

“....yes, but-”

“Was I helpful?”

“Debatable, but-”

“What they do with my help and how they react to my niceness is up to them. Now tell me how to fix my fucking nails.”

Susan glared and pulled out her wand to wave it over Harry’s hands. “You’re an ass. _Mutantur red_.” 

“You said you’d tell me how to get it off! Not change the color!”

“ _You_ said you’d be behave!”

Harry pouted. “I did behave! I behaved exactly like Hannah does and you never have a problem with her flirting with everyone!” It had been so much fucking fun too, the looks.. Oh god their reactions was going to make him smile for years. This almost made up for Hannah’s betrayal.

Susan stomped a foot. “Hannah is a girl and has always been a flirt. YOU are a boy and you never flirt with anyone and now all my Ravenclaw friends think you’re even more insane than they’ve heard! I can’t _believe_ you! I’m trying to salvage your reputation here! Stop ruining it!”

Harry shrugged a shoulder. “I never cared what they thought of me before this, and I still don’t care now. YOU are the one whose expectations changed among other people.”

“That’s not.. I didn’t… AAARGH!” Susan threw her hands up and stomped away. Not very far, they were going to same House after all. 

Harry grinned as he tagged along, twirling his wand between his fingers idly. Neville’s wand. In his opinion the evening had gone perfectly- the Ravenclaws got to hear how he’d killed the giant snake, and he got to watch the group of smarties dissolve into an arguing mess. Perfect antidote for a bad mood!

It had been pretty funny, no matter how large Harry insisted the beast had been some of Ravenclaws could not accept it. Big enough for Harry to put his arm in one side of the mouth and not touch the other side? Preposterous! Cold-blooded animals could only get so big in the cool weather of England, it just wasn’t warm enough. (It was a _magic_ snake, the Purebloods reminded their Muggleborn counterparts.)

Then the Ravens had debated on how such a large creature, if it had been that large, could survive so long but not get seen before now. Snakes might not need to eat often but they did need to eat! And they didn’t hibernate for a thousand years! ( _Magic_ snakes might, the Muggleborns snarked.) 

None of them could (or wanted ) to practice the blasting charm Harry had used, not to its full potential anyways (certainly not hard enough to blast a hole into Hogwarts) which sadly meant that part of the discussion had to be skipped. Pity.

Susan, who should have known better than to allow him to get bored, lost track of him during the following debates over wand-swapping and how temperamental some wands could be. Harry, rotten little brat that he was, had a LOT of practice in egging people on when bickering and had used this skill to the best of his ability.

A first year girl had burst into tears, heh.

“We definitely need to hang out with the Ravens more often,” Harry announced to Susan’s back, watching how even her hair looked irritated as the long blonde strands streamed behind her. He took a moment to look his nails over. At least they were a proper red now, not quite the color of blood but pretty damn close to it. Better than nothing he supposed. 

The magical polish was a bitch and half to get off if you didn’t know the right charm. Harry wasn’t going to try vanishing it again, his poor pinky was tender and sore to match the one he’d cut up for Tom, and the nail was never going to grow back right. A scouring charm had only dried out his skin and left it cracked and patchy. 

Much like Ron’s skin though Harry had of course stopped trying to clean him up ages ago.

(Really, he’d stopped. Completely. No cleaning spells on people no matter how irritating they were. Promise.)

 _Tom_ would have known how to get rid of the polish without getting rid of his fingernails but that fucker was the whole reason Harry was in this mess. For Harry getting blackmailed into talking to Susan’s collection of Ravens, and for Harry getting his nails painted in the first place. 

He knew the journal had been in his pocket at the time of the Great Snake Bludgeoning, because right beforehand he’d been talking to Tom about using his wand and Tom had said he should try using someone else's. Then the snake had happened, and Harry’s interrogation by the Headmaster, and then seeing Pomfrey about his ribs.. Harry hadn’t been able to check his pocket to tell Tom about the whole thing until he was sitting in Defence Against the Dark Arts. 

Dumbledore had not been pleased about Harry’s bout of swearing, nor had he allowed Harry to go looking for his notebook. Something about being more responsible for his belongings. Harry and Neville and the Puffs had gone back later and combed through the surprisingly clean hallway during lunch but.. No luck.

Tom was gone. Fucking _vanished_.

Two days of intense sulking later, Hannah decided to take advantage of Harry’s I Don’t Fucking Care Anymore mood and sweetly asked if she could color his nails. Planted face first onto his bed and remembering how Toby would color his nails with a black sharpie, Harry had agreed without thinking about what he was actually agreeing to. 

(He could be kind of proud of Hannah’s conniving ways… if it weren’t for, you know, Bubble. Fucking. Gum. Pink. What the fuck? His color was _red_ and she _knew_ that! Girls were a goddamn menace to society.)

Then she had refused to tell him how to remove it. “Think of this as your punishment for always sneaking up on me and scaring me half to death. You want it off, figure it out yourself!” and had scurried off to the girls dorm where a magical barrier kept the boys out. Harry wouldn’t have hurt her! Much. Maybe just one little noogie? She totally had it coming!

Which in turn had led to Susan offering to help, if Harry came along to the Ravenclaw studygroup and told them what had REALLY happened in the basement with the snake. No exaggerations!

When Harry got his hands on Tom again he was pouring a whole bottle of pink nail polish into the pages. Would serve him right for disappearing, the asshole.

(If he did find Tom that was, the school was an awfully large place for a little book. Harry had seen his little art projects in the strangest of places these days, and he’d swear he even saw Draco with one yesterday. Now _that_ had the potential to be fun.)

But.. 

Harry missed Tom. He even missed getting woken up in the middle of the night when the journal tried to get into his brain, probably to suck away his soul. Well, if Harry saw anyone start walking around like half a zombie he’d know why. 

“Harry! Hurry up!” 

Brought back to the present, Harry looked up to find Susan tapping her foot at the next flight of stairs down, glaring at him again. “It’s almost curfew so stop dwaddling!”

“Yes mother,” he grinned as he jogged down. He slipped an arm around her waist so they could continue walking together. “Come on, it was funny! Watching smart people argue and counter-argue about things they’re passionate about? What could have been more entertaining than that? I was helping them figure out the puzzle!”

Susan sniffed, head held high and refusing to look at him. “If you burn every bridge you come across before we’ve even finished our second year, how are you going to manage it when you need help later on?”

“Be screwed I guess. Who cares! We’re twelve! Live a little!”

“ _I know it was you, Potter_!”

See, Ron wasn’t wasting time on worrying about small things like social obligations, now was he? With a face red as a tomato and bared teeth, the Weasley barged up the stairs like a ginger rhino and twice as furious. 

Harry grinned and shoved Susan out of the way as Ron brought his fist up and swung at the smaller boy. All Harry really had to do was hop backwards a bit to let the other boy over-extend himself and fall, which was always amusing. For all his temper, Ron wasn't much of a fighter. Ron caught the railing with a flailing hand to keep from face-planting on the stone stairs and started shouting again-

“ _What did you do to Ginny_?!”

“Absolutely fucking nothing. Why? Does she have my book?” Fucking figured that the little annoyance would have Tom back in her grubby soon-to-be-sickly hands. When would she have even had the chance… Well if Tom sucked out her soul some more then Harry would get his book back in no time. Awesome!

Oh crap. Harry backed up even further until he reached the landing as three more Weasleys popped up behind Ron. The whole fucking clan was out, even Percy was looking oddly homicidal and he was a nerd. What the fuck? Not that Harry was going to complain exactly, but stairs were tricky to brawl on, moving ones especially.

Before they could get down to a proper beat down sadly (happily? There were four of them), an iridescent wall popped up between Harry and the gingers.

“That is enough!” Susan snapped, her barrier popping like a soup bubble as she took a sharp breath.

Considering that they had just been shown how to do that spell in class earlier that day, Harry was impressed it had lasted long enough to bring the mob of red-heads up short. Then the teachers appeared, and Harry was once more disappointed at their response time. Only when Harry wanted some time to play did they ever appear this quickly, it was downright frustrating. What did a proxie have to do for a little accidental homicide in this place?

“Ronald Weasley, put your wand up this instant!”

“He wasn’t using his wand,” Harry pointed out helpfully. The nasty glare he got in return from the Old Bat made him grin. Harry so loved being obnoxious, it was his favorite hobby..

..until it got him tackled by a Weasley and punched in the face.

Things got a little blurry after that.


	26. Oh boy..

Harry couldn’t ever recall getting hit on the right side of his face. Pretty much every other spot on his body and skull had been pummeled at one point or another, accidentally or on purpose, but on the right side of his face?

Never. 

He’d been smacked with boards, ran face first into a pole once (he still remembered the sound of Toby wheezing for air after laughing so hard) and had a stone chucked at his face when he was little. He’d lost teeth, broken his nose (several times), had a nail shot through his ear, concussed…

But he’d never been directly punched in the face over his red eye. 

Harry slowly turned his head and watched the room warp. It was the same yet.. not. The colors were a bit off, just enough for Harry to notice the difference between the left side of the room and the right. Not brighter but.. more saturated? Richer? Almost everything in the room were edged in a bright, overlapping halos of light. A little like each item and portrait and even the goddamn carpets had a spotlight aimed directly at it. And then there were the _people_..

Harry had a hell of a migraine blooming behind his eye. Eyes. Eye?

Harry pressed a hand over his aching face and slunk down into the armchair he was sharing with Susan. The adults were standing around snapping at each other and scolding the ginger horde, while waiting for something to happen. He hoped it happened soon. 

Every time one of the Weasley’s flailed their arms in the air they left trails of light behind. Or when the Old Bat paced, clouds of golden glitter marked where she had been. Professor Snape was the easiest to look at because he stood as stiff and still as a statue with folded arms and looking down his long nose at the gathered people. 

Harry was pulled upright by Susan who was still latched onto his arm like a blonde octopus, having refused to be sent off and leave Harry alone with such a hostile group. “I’m a witness! Ron came up and attacked Harry and I have the right to stay here!”

The Old Bat’s lips had pressed so tightly together that she almost had no mouth at all, but finally allowed the girl to come along to the Headmaster’s office. 

Harry didn’t have to argue his case with her there, so he was kind of thankful. Baffled, but thankful. They HAD spent the evening with the Ravenclaws and they would back _Susan_ up if not him. The problem was that Ginny Weasley had gone missing sometime before all that and even Harry couldn’t remember where exactly he’d been all day except for the scheduled classes. 

He liked to roam, so sue him!

Or send him to Azkaban as Ron was loudly demanding. The twins were a little more quiet but not by much. And Percy was.. Well.. Percy was more or less begging Harry to tell them what he’d done to Ginny so they could go get her, whenever he could get a word in edgewise between the other three. 

Crowded as the office was already, it got even worse as the fireplace off to the side flared green and started spewing even more people into the room. Two more shabby redheads, much older and likely the parents of the Weasley clan, and then a tall black man in blue robes and a grey haired woman in brown. _And then_ a man in a green bowler hat followed by another but much paler man with a cane.

The air was thick with glittery golden light and Harry turned to press his face into Susan’s shoulder. 

“Aunt Amelia!” Susan was thrilled to see the Auror, Head Auror to be exact, and someone who wasn’t just going to toss Harry in jail for acting suspicious. 

“Susan?” The older woman frowned down at the Hufflepuffs squished into the armchair, then turned to the Headmaster with raised eyebrows. “I was told there was a missing First Year under suspicious circumstances, what on earth does that have to do with my niece?”

Before the Headmaster could explain, Ron bawled out “HE DID IT! HE’S BEEN TRYING TO KILL US ALL YEAR AND NOW HE’S DONE SOMETHING TO GINNY!”

“He has not-”

“HE TALKS TO SNAKES, ONLY EVIL WIZARDS TALK TO SNAKES!”

“Headmaster-”

“HE HAS RED EYES!”

“Only o-”

“HE CALLED A BASILISK TO THE SCHOOL!”

“ _Silencio_!”

There was a pause in the room as Ron’s mouth continued to move but the yelling stopped.

“Err… thank you Severus. Now if I could-”

“Dumbledore! Where is my daughter?” cried out the Weasley Mother because apparently none of them could keep their fucking traps shut.

“At the moment we are unable to locate Miss Wea-”

“How is this the first time I’ve heard of trouble? Petrifications, attacks, missing students, missing teachers? What kind of school are you running here Dumbledore?!” blustered Bowler Hat.

‘If I may-”

“Headmaster Dumbledore has been getting on in the years, perhaps it is time for retirement,” drawled the blonde who looked way too much like Draco to be a coincidence.

The Headmaster, Harry noted as he turned his head just enough to see from his left eye, was starting to look very put upon as everyone in the room seemed determined to get their say in. 

“Ginny’s been petrified?!” shrieked the shabby mother, the probably-father putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“We don’t know yet-”

“This is a disgrace!”

“Surely this falls under the Ministry's purview, the safety of our children-!”

“Susan.”

The last part was from Ms. Bones, or was it Madame?, to her niece, coming to stand at the girl’s shoulder and pitching her voice to travel under all the arguing from the.. ‘mature’ adults in charge. “What on earth is going on?”

“They think Harry made Ginny vanish because they’re bigoted idiots. He’s been in class all day and then after class with me because I wanted him to talk to the Ravenclaws so I asked Hannah to paint his nails so I could blackmail him into doing it.”

Wait, what? He’d been _played_.

Susan barely paused for breath as she tried to get all the relevant information out before someone else could butt in. “Harry killed a basilisk on accident and the teachers have been trying to downplay it while saying everything has been fixed and no one will be petrified but no one knows yet who’s been writing messages on the walls and Harry doesn’t DO that sort of thing.”

Harry was a little impressed by the amount of words Susan could get out in one go. She wasn’t normally the type of person to babble in a run-on sentence. 

He was a thankful the swelling had set in as he caught Ms. Bones looking his way. It not only cut down the amount of light stabbing into his brain, but it also hid his red eye fairly well. This was not some student he could smirk at and scare into submission, this was the magical police. To go by what Susan said about her aunt, this was the _best of the best_ in the magical police. Harry had better tread carefully. 

Very carefully. 

Harry started to feel a little nauseous as that settled into his brain. The magical police were here, for whatever reason, and Harry was a little.. uhh.. on the questionable side. As he started to tally up just how many people in the room hated him, he could finally understand what Susan had been talking about earlier with her bridges. 

Harry found himself shrinking down in the chair, trying to look smaller. Susan tightened her grip on his arm and tilted her chin upwards. “They’ve been picking on Harry since last year, Auntie! He hasn’t done anything wrong!” Just be creepy and kill a mythical monster all by himself.. Nothing he could be arrested for!

‘Auntie’s eyebrow twitched but her stern expression didn’t otherwise change. She stood up straight and turned towards the Headmaster and his loud guests, silencing them with a ruthless efficiency Harry had rarely seen in a person. “What’s been done to find the girl?”

“Err…”

Not much apparently. The Weasley Brothers had searched high and low all over the tower and the classrooms and common areas with some sort of map they had, but hadn’t found her OR the kid she’d spent most of her time with.

So TWO students were missing? Good grief.

More teachers arrived but this time it was a good thing. Sprout was highly upset about not being told two of her Badgers were hauled off, she’d found out from Professor Flitwick, who only knew because the Ravenclaws Susan and Harry had spent all evening with had heard the fuss on the stairs. Clever students as they were, they had hustled up to their tower THEN told their Head of House.

Sprout planted herself behind Harry and Susan’s chair, hovering over them protectively. Harry’s nerves weren’t jangling quite so badly now that they had backup, but with Bones just a few feet away next to Susan, Harry was still feeling a little tense.

“Given the gravity of the situation I think it only prudent we shut down the school!” Bowler Hat was blustering. He was the Minister or something? Didn’t seem very Minister-like in Harry’s eyes but then what did he know. “Don’t you agree Lucius?” 

Dumbledore coughed and tried to break in with- “The situation has been taken care of Gentlemen, there is no need for such drastic steps. No more students will be petrified I assure you.”

“No, just go missing,” The Draco Senior shook his head in mock-sadness, a sly little smile on his lips as he carefully didn’t look in the Weasley's direction. “It’s quite obvious that this situation has been gavely been mishandled by the staff, _fixed_ as it may be. Do the parents of the petrified students even know their children have been in the hospital wing for… how long Dumbledore?”

“Exactly! We should get the Auror’s in here at once!” Bowler Hat puffed out his chest.. 

Auntie Bones cleared her throat pointedly. The other Auror rolled his eyes but continued to hold his tongue until the blustery little man finally ran out of hot air. ...surely that would happen soon. 

Taking advantage of a moment when everyone paused in their screaming at each other, Harry couldn’t stop himself from asking- “has anyone even tried looking for her in the bathroom?”

Susan’s Scary Aunt swung her sharp gaze back over to him, and Harry made certain to stay wedged in the chair with Susan. Good thing neither of them were chunky, or else they’d have been forced to split up. Didn’t he just look so small and pitiful? Toby had totally used Harry’s (Boy’s) smallness to their advantage when he’d been super tiny- so sweet and innocent like a straggly little kitten left out in the fucking cold.

“Why do you ask that, Mr. Potter?” She asked him shrewdly. 

“That’s where she’s always going, to get away from them I guess,” jerking a thumb towards the ginger mob. “Moaning Turtle ..uhh Myrtle, drives most people off from using that hallway so it’s a quiet place to sit and do homework or whatever. Neville and I go down there a lot. She’s always going in and not coming back out for hours at a time. Pretty sure there’s a secret passage in there somewhere.”

Of course there was some more shouting about how a boy who keeps track of the bathroom habits of a little girl was plain weird, but the Aurors at least seemed to be thinking it over. 

“Where is this bathroom?”


	27. Confidence is Key

Harry was feeling very inconvenienced.

He frowned down at his bare wrists as they stuck out of the sleeves of his hoodie. Yeah he’d always wanted to be taller, he was so so sick of being the smallest in his year, but goddammit this was his favorite hoodie! Bright red and lined with fleece on the inside, it was durable and comfy and had a pocket perfect for his hands and a weapon. Or small book, since Harry didn’t take his knives out into the school anymore. He’d already lost three of them to the Old Bat this year.

But now his best hoodie was too damn small.

Harry pulled the cuffs down over his hands where he liked them, and felt the material pull at his shoulders. Releasing the fabric let it spring back up his wrists and that was equally weird. Harry whined as he pulled the hoodie back over his head and dropped it into his trunk. 

Maybe if he cut the sleeves off… nah, he had really skinny arms.

It was the weekend! He didn’t have to wear robes! He could wear whatever he fucking wanted without getting scolded and suddenly nothing fit! And fuck, even his jeans were getting a bit short at the ankle though with his heavy boots it wasn’t as noticable. (Harry refused to acknowledge the pinching of his toes because no. Just no. Take his hoodie, take his jeans, he wasn’t getting rid of his fucking boots.)

Justin, the lucky bastard, didn’t have to worry about that at all since he’d spent half the year petrified and that meant no growing out of his favorite clothes. Harry looked up at the ceiling as he considered this. 

“...does this mean you’re only twelve and a half instead of thirteen?” he wondered aloud. 

Sitting on the floor with his hair still rumpled from a proper sleep in his own bed, surrounded by a sea of books and papers, Justin looked up to glare at Harry. “No, it does not. Because then I’d have to explain to my parents that I spent most of the year petrified. Something they were not informed previously of because the Headmaster didn’t want to worry them _needlessly_.”

Justin was, rather correctly, a bit bitter about the whole situation. Waking up in the infirmary and being told it was almost the end of the school year had been very shocking. While Hannah had done her best to get the group down to the infirmary every so often, it hadn't helped- Justin hadn’t heard a single word. 

Ernie finally finished fussing over his tie and started in on his hair. At this rate he’d be able to catch the end of breakfast. “We’ll have to throw you a little party later to make up for missing your birthday. And.. uh… are we going to the memorial?” It was his essays Justin was pouring over, trying to get an idea on what he’d missed over the last six months. At least the Headmaster had given Justin and the little camera-kid a pass on the exams along with the Weasleys.

Harry shrugged a shoulder, pulling out a second hoodie. It was almost the same shade of red but this one zipped up the front and that really shouldn't have made a difference but it did and he wasn’t happy. That and the bottom hem kept riding up over his stomach, making him constantly pull it back down. 

“I asked Sprout about it, and she agreed that people would prob’ly be upset no matter what I did so she’ll leave it up to me. But if I do go I have to tell the Prefects so that the Quidditch team can escort us. Dunno why, not like Ron’s still here to scream at me.”

All four Weasley boys had been sent home early, for the funeral of the Baby Weasley. Harry had heard a couple of the older Hufflepuffs talking about how that was kind, but also a bit stupid in the long run, what with Percy being a fifth year. Apparently the Fivers had these really important exams to decide what they could specialize in later. 

If he was allowed to skip the.. Owls?.. would Percy be allowed to take any class he wanted, leaving the teachers to hope he could actually keep up? That was hardly fair to the kids who had studied like mad to get in.

For that matter, what was the point of doing a million fucking miles of essays and work sheets if none of it mattered? The only thing that mattered was the end-of-year tests and that was the grade you were stuck with. What about the kids with test anxiety? How fucking obnoxious.

“...what did Susan tell you?”

“That I’m going. ‘cause not going looks more callous.”

Ernie and Roger snickered as Harry’s eye-roll became a fully body move. Susan, his new Morality Manager, was doubly intent now to repair Harry’s reputation with the whole being accused of murder stuff. His tip about the bathroom leading the Aurors to find the mythical Chamber of Secrets after centuries of rumors, and then the small body of the missing Gryffindor inside it.. Harry was pretty sure he’d have been lynched by the Weasley family if he hadn’t been sent back to Hufflepuff by then. The next morning he’d been pulled from bed for an interview by the Aurors and that had been enlightening in several ways.

He hadn’t known there was a way to check a wand for spells, and Harry mentally thanked Flitwick for his insistence on extra lessons after the Great Wand Swap. Neville too since both of them were seriously over-powering their charms after working so long with an unhappy wand. All the spells had been regular school things or the odd cleaning charm as Harry tried to find the balance between a ruthless scrubbing and a barely-touched dusting.

He’d also learned that truth serums existed, though theoretically they were illegal to use on minors. And that there were people who specialized in reading minds. Again, illegal to use on minors. Unless they’d been called to court and Harry definitely didn’t want to end up in court. 

Honestly, Harry hadn’t actually done anything that bad in Hogwarts, had he? He hadn’t killed or maimed anyone, just started a couple fistfights. He hadn’t stolen anything, broken anything but the floor... He hadn’t so much as cheated on a test. 

Harry was a fucking _saint_ if you thought about it.

Bonus- somehow by the grace of all things unholy he’d managed to keep himself supplied with alibis. All those fights he kept getting detentions for, the detentions themselves, playing Quidditch with the Slytherins, the morning runs, the extra lessons, the clubs.. Harry was almost never alone and at some point he’d gotten used to the itchy feeling of always being watched.

He owed Susan so many favors right now it wasn’t funny. If she hadn’t glued herself to his side he’d probably be in Azkaban. And then Slender would have to come break him out and then Harry would get grounded and… ugh. Harry didn’t want a prison tattoo!

“So just as a re-cap,” Justin interrupted, still sounding cranky, “Lockhart has vanished, no one knows where or why. Instead of reporting it, Dumbledore took over his classes and has been teaching shielding spells. Harry killed the basilisk, though none of the teachers will confirm it because they don’t want things to be blown out of proportion. Because Harry killed it, he’s been accused of murdering the girl who’s memorial we are going to after dinner and that makes perfect sense. Anything else?”

Harry grinned. It had been forever since Justin had been back in the dorm, and Harry remembered him as the calm and collected kid from a rich family. Landed gentry or something, if that was the term still used. To see him all huffy and irritable was funny. 

“Mmmmm... Ron and the bossy girl from Gryffindor managed to brew some Polyjuice potion, and they tried to make Harry confess to petrifying you. They got stuck with detentions with Snape and Ron got a howler from his Mum that was absolutely brutal.” Roger threw Ernie an apologetic look for bringing it up. 

Ernie grimaced but allowed it. Justin would have been told about it eventually. “Try not to mention it around Hannah, she’s still creeped out by it..”

Roger snickered some more. “You guys look so cute when you’re cuddling.”

While Justin looked exasperated that no one had bothered to mention Hannah and Ernie were dating till just now, Harry grabbed a book out of his trunk and threw it at Roger. “If YOU have a nightmare I’ll leave you to the fucking wolves, asshole.”

Harry had slept in a little too long once.

Ernie’s cheeks went red. Strangely, he turned the same color whenever Harry took the time to polish his wand. Being borrowed, it was important to look after it properly and that meant keeping it clean and shiny. Neville would never forgive him if anything happened to the stick. 

Speaking of Neville, Harry was supposed to be meeting him at breakfast. Harry tried to stick his wand into his hoodie pocket and frowned as it refused to fit. He finally jammed it into a back pocket of his jeans. All he had to do was pull Mimi out of her little cast iron bed and tuck her into his hair. 

“I’m off. Wanna escape before the girls are up. See you guys in the Hall?”

Roger was still lazing about in his pajamas, the slug. A slug now skimming through the book Harry had thrown at him. “After all of what’s happened, you’re _actually_ going to go off alone?”

“...I’m going to the Great Hall. How the fuck is that all alone?”

Roger grabbed one of his pillows and threw it at Ernie’s back. “Talk to him!”

“Err..” Ernie side-eyed Harry, cheeks still pink.

Justin sighed and started stuffing all the papers he could gather up into his barely-used school bag. “I’ll go. I need to stretch my legs and I’m starving. It feels like I haven't eaten in w- nevermind. Ready Harry.”

“It’s the Hall. Dozens of people there. What do they think is gunna happen?” Harry grumbled as he climbed through the beer barrel. 

“I think it’s the trip to the Hall, in the vacant and dimly lit hallways out of the basement. Though you were getting cozy with the Slytherins last I knew, I hardly think they’d let you get ambushed on their turf.”

Harry grimaced, remembering when the Gryffindors had in fact ambushed him in the hall to the Badger Den and Flint had broken it up. “Actually, on that note, you’re now my backup. That was embarrassing as hell.”

“ _What_ was?” The grumpiness was back in Justin’s tone. If he had to repeat those words one more time, magic help him, he was going to hex someone. 

Harry threw an arm over the sulking boy’s shoulders. He didn’t have to reach all that far either with Justin’s growth spurt temporarily halted. “Fake it ‘til you make it. Just pretend everything was beneath your notice and that people are stupid.”

The Badger eyed Harry for a moment. “Is that how you get through your day?”

“Yup! Who the fuck cares what the other kids are doing? Not my house, not my friends, not my problem. Someone asks you about last week or last month, just look down your pert little nose and tell them they’re an idiot.”

“So you want me to act like Snape.”

“...not a bad idea. You don’t see people pestering him with stupid stuff. Just act confident and like a boss and no one will know otherwise. Trust me.”

“Huh.”


	28. Onward and Out

Harry tilted his head to the side a bit in consideration.

Of all the things he’d expect to find on the school grounds in the dead of night, it was most certainly NOT Professor Snape playing at being a Graverobber.

Hip deep in a muddy hole, silk-wrapped bundle in his arms, Snape stared back. 

The antique-looking lantern added a nice touch, bathing the scene in a dim golden light. Not unlike the golden glitter that still plagued Harry’s red eye from time to time.

Harry had been unable to sleep, and because every time someone insisted he should never wander off alone made him crave freedom, he’d left the dormitory for one last wander once the other boys had fallen asleep. And what luck! He’d discovered a scene of criminal activity and it wasn’t his!

“Can I have a tooth?”

“You can have a _detention_ ,” the tall man growled. 

“We leave tomorrow morning, not much time for that.” Harry smirked at the man, tucking his hands into his hoodie pockets. “And I’m not the one digging up an illegal basilisk corpse.”

Harry should have ended up on his knees scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush with such blatant blackmail. He didn’t get any sort of teeth, Snape wasn’t a fool, but Harry DID get three of the vertebrae in miniature form strung on a cord like beads. AND he got to help dissect the mini-basilisk! Harry assumed it was supposed to be a punishment with the mess and the late time and the persnickety comments… but Harry didn’t mind any of that. Why did the teachers still expect him to act normal?

When Harry wanted to know why the body hadn’t rotted away by now as he helped chop up the miniature snake before the pieces were re-enlarged, the Professor just sneered down at him. 

“ _Magic_.”

After Flitwick and Sprout, Professor Snape was kind of his favorite teacher. Sorta. The man hated him so fucking much and he didn’t try to hide it, and that was pretty cool. Unlike the Old Bat who said she treated him exactly like the other students and all her punishments were fairly earned. 

Cranky Old Bat..

A couple hours later, Harry traipsed back to Hufflepuff with his new necklace and much more knowledge of snake anatomy then he’d considered worth knowing, and uhhhhmmm...

“....I had to use the bathroom.” Harry put up his hand in the ‘on my honor’ motion.

The Hufflepuff prefects glared at him tiredly. Junie finally pointed at the wall of beer barrels with a sigh. “You’re lucky this is the end of our patrol shift. And the last night. Go to bed! And STAY there!”

No sense of humor that girl. Her or Kyle, the male Prefect. They were always trying to pin Harry down with rules and restrictions.. Didn’t they know by now that just made it more of a challenge? Heh. But Harry scuttled off before they could ask more questions. Tiptoeing back into the Second Year dorm, he eyed the bed closest to the door. 

It _was_ pretty late, and he _was_ pretty tired by now. Too tired, maybe, to find his own bed in the darkness. And Roger was always teasing about how Harry occasionally slept in Ernie’s bed, perhaps that was out of jealousy? Harry should help him with that. 

He took of his boots and hoodie, not that the damn thing was at all helpful since it kept riding up his stomach, and crawled in beside the snoring boy without undressing further. Harry snuggled up against Roger’s back and let himself finally drift off to sleep too.

The morning yelp and flailing was music to Harry’s ears. Or it would have been if he hadn’t been so damn tired. He’d been up all night! He needed his beauty rest! Harry pulled a pillow over his head to block out Roger’s startled face and tried to go back to sleep. 

He was uncomfortably hot in his jeans under the blankets, but he was too sleepy to care enough about it to move. Until he found himself pushed out of the bed and onto the floor and _that_ made him care. It took him a moment to untangle himself from the blankets and sheets, but eventually he was able to stare at Roger reproachfully. As if he hadn’t been the one to trespass. 

“I was sleeping! You all keep saying I need to sleep more!”

“In your _own bed_!” 

Harry flapped a hand because who cared whose bed it was, in the long run? 

Other than Roger.

Roger didn’t count. 

Because.. He just didn’t. So there.

Harry yawned so widely he felt his jaw crack, and before Roger could try getting his blankets back Harry decided to go back to sleep right there on the floor to spite him. …except now Harry was awake enough to acknowledge he was too hot and needed to pee. Goddammit.

He was still sulking about it as they hauled their trunks out to the carriages with the funky bat-horses. Thestrals. There was a whole herd of them in the forest, and as Harry had gleefully discovered, they were carnivorous and handy to have around when he needed to get rid of some extracurricular activities. 

Hunting, Harry went hunting when he could get away with it. A couple rabbits, a deer, some birds. Giant spider. 

Almost had his head taken off by a centaur, which had been the one thing to make him decide that maaaaybe the forest should be slightly off limits after all. Oh that there was a whole colony of giant spiders. The bat-horses had eaten the one nearly the same size of Smile Dog after it had chased Harry and Neville up a tree. A few slashes later had rendered it helpless, and the horses had been pleased with their crunchy snack.

Best freaky horse things ever. Harry made sure to bring a couple sausages with him to the carriage, offering them to the beasties charged with hauling the students to the station.

Harry leaned into Neville and tried to used him as a pillow to catch another couple minutes of sleep. If he curled up really small it seemed perfectly doable until Trevor started kicking up a fuss. Literally. While croaking as loud as a little toad could croak when trapped in Neville’s pocket. Which was much louder than one might expect of something so small.

“Sorry, he doesn’t like to be cooped up either,” as Neville tried to make the toad be still. “I should get a pet carrier really. Maybe when we go to Diagon Alley this summer.”

The carriages weren’t that big when adding trunks and owl cages. Hannah’s pretty little Saw-whet owl, Lavinia, kept staring at Harry with her big golden eyes. Justin had claimed the last seat with his much larger Eagle owl, not to be confused with Draco’s Eagle owl because Cromwell was _easily_ much more handsome. 

Surrounded by birds and a toad that could swallow her down in one bite, Mimi took up her place in Harry’s braided hair and was not coming out any time soon. Nope. 

Harry eyed the ridiculously sized cage for the owl with huge eyebrows. “Don’t you usually send the birds home from the castle?”

“Yeah, usually. I think Cromwell missed me though, because he wouldn’t go. And Lavinia hurt her wing so Hannah doesn’t want her to have to fly so far.”

“Ah.” Well that made sense. Cages still looked stupidly small though.

As Hannah held up the morning paper to read the items-for-sale section, giggling over the silly things people tried to ask way too much money for, Harry was at the perfect level to see the front page. The headline “HARRY POTTER, THE DARK LORD’S HEIR!” screamed for attention.

He rolled his eyes. 

Auntie Amelia, having heard from her niece about the parentage test Dumbledore had done two years ago, had demanded to know why he hadn’t released the results. Or, you know, called in a professional who was actually _allowed_ to do the test in the first place. On a legal standpoint, especially when dealing with minors and inheritance issues, only the Goblins at Gringotts were allowed to do lineage blood tests. Headmaster or not, forcing a student to offer up his blood for a magical test was HIGHLY unethical. To keep those results hidden when it could have soothed many concerned minds was even worse. All of which eventually meant Harry was called back to the office a few nights later to have the test replicated, by a little Goblin with the biggest tufts of hair coming out of his ears that Harry had ever seen.

Of course, the release of his blood-test had had interesting repercussions other than silencing some of the more heated rumors.. Such as- it turned out that defeating the Dark Lord Voldemort in ‘combat’ had made Harry a magical heir to everything the Dark Lord had owned or claimed. Even if that came to absolutely nothing because there was no will or bank account under Voldemort’s name.

_However._

What Harry hadn’t been allowed to see from the first test, was that his name hadn’t shown up as just ‘Harry James Potter’, born of James Potter and Lily Evans Potter. Dumbledore’s reticence was suddenly a lot more clear, because when he’d been called back to do the test a second time for the real authorities, his name had appeared on the paper as ‘Harry James Potter-Riddle’.

Who knew Dark Lords had actual last names as well as a dislike for paperwork?

Not the Aurors. That Dumbledore had also held back information of the Dark Lord’s past, his very name, had not made them happy. At all. Almost as unhappy as Dumbledore himself when he was forced to cough up the other stuff he’d known. Not that Harry got to know any of it, which of course made _him_ very unhappy, finishing off the group.

So.. yeah. Lord Voldemort was actually Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry would have gone Dark too with a name like that. 

He couldn’t wait to talk (torment) the old Snake when he… got… 

Wait…

Tom Riddle. _Tom Fucking Marvolo Riddle._

That goddamn _journal._

His goddamn missing journal with the snarky teenager inside who was also a Tom M. Riddle and that could NOT be a coincidence. The Basilisk and the petrifications and Ginny’s cold corpse and an old Dark Lord named Tom Marvolo Riddle who talked to snakes and hated everyone.

Old Man had a lot of explaining to do when Boy got home. 

Fucker.

“What was that thing Professor Sprout gave you when we left? _Another_ book? Don’t you have enough yet?”

Harry looked up from poking at the unhappy toad in Neville’s pocket, trying to make him stop moving so much and let Harry have his nap. Neville kept slapping Harry’s hand away each time because Harry wasn’t bothering to be gentle in his poking. Harry in return jabbed Neville in the ribs, making the boy yelp, and got himself shoved off the seat. 

Lips settling in a pout, Harry leaned instead against Hannah’s legs and crinkled her paper. “Yeah, another book. It’s a list of all the stuff I got at Christmas. Remember when she locked up all the jewelry and gold stuff? It wasn’t because it was worth a fortune like we thought, it was because she wanted it all checked out for curses.”

“And?” Justin prompted. “Was it?”

“Some. Mostly just the anonymous stuff. A couple were tagged with.. uhh… trackers? Anything that was spelled up, no matter what it was, got sold through the goblins at the bank. That’s all listed in my book too. It also keeps track of everything she donated in my name, for taxes I guess, and what was stored away for later.”

Harry paused to jab at Neville’s ankles, because the Lion’s robe was also getting too short and Harry could see them. How inappropriate! “What would your grandmother say if she knew you were flaunting you ankles? In front of a Lady no less!”

That ‘Lady’ eventually had to threaten Neville away with her paper, rolled up into a tube, actually smacking Harry with it, before the two settled down again. Justin just waited it out, petting his owl through the cage bars. 

“How are we meeting up this summer?”

“We?”

Hannah patted Harry on the head, being as he was still sitting on the floor. “Well Susan and I have come up with a plan! Since Harry can’t receive owls, all he has to do is contact you the muggle way,” looking at Justin and ignoring the faces Neville and Harry were making at each other, “and you’ll owl the rest of us with the date that Harry can be in Diagon. Easy!”

“Huh. That’s.. brilliant. Susan’s idea you said?”

Hannah waved her paper at him. “I can use this on you too!”

“I’m still getting over being petrified for half a year, would you really hit a sickly man?”

“Man? No. But I would smack a sickly, smart-tongued _boy_.”

Harry looked up now, head tilted back to see Hannah’s face. “Hmm?”

Hannah flipped a pigtail back over her shoulder with a small sniff in Justin’s direction before she repeated-. “Justin’s agreed to be the middleman and you can do that Muggle thing to let him know when you’ll be in Diagon. We’ll all meet up and do our shopping! Oh it will be such fun, getting our new supplies and clothes and going to Fortescue's!”

Harry hesitated. 

Sneaking away from his brothers again was not going to be an ideal situation, especially when he knew what would happen afterwards. Or something worse because it would look like he found it an acceptable price and therefore not enough of a punishment. But.. no guts no glory right? He’d find a way. Somehow.

“Yeah sure. Just gimme the number and I’ll call you eventually.” Surely there was a public phone of some sort in the little town near Slender’s castle. If not, a little breaking and entering never hurt anyone but the homeowners. 

Oh no.. before all that happened, Boy was going to need to go _clothes shopping_. 

Harry yanked the bottom of his his sweatshirt back down over his stomach as the horrible realization filled his mind. Maybe he could just.. Well no, BEN didn’t have actual clothes, he was a ghost. He didn’t have anything Boy could steal. The other boys were too big to wear their clothes for an extended amount of time. 

Fan-fucking-tastic. 

But things could arguably be worse. 

Such as- Toby could be waiting for him at the train station with a very, very wide space around him as students avoided the obvious Muggle..? Him and the huge albino cobra draped over his shoulders. Toby could be waving at him as cheerful as ever while the snake threw up his hood and hissed darkly at the wide-eyed and whispering kids. Not even the Slytherins were going near and they liked snakes.

However that was obviously _not happening_ and Harry was hallucinating because why the fuck was Toby at the _school train station with Voldemort?_ Where non-students even allowed here? Not like the school ever had any security set up but this was stupid.

“Hey Shorty! Miss me? The old man and I are here to give you a lift!” 

 

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Bk 2! Just in time for my birthday, lol.
> 
> I'm slowly figuring out this whole story-telling thing, or I think I am. It'll never be perfect, but I aim to amuse and that's enough for me. I have my ideas for Bk 3 and I'll be working on it a good bit before I start posting chapters, but it IS happening for you worriers out there. I don't know when I'll be posting because there's a lot of things to decide on before I can even start but... yeah. I hope you won't be disappointed.
> 
> Thanks for reading with me! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Things seem to be moving along again, I've got a couple more updates set up so we should see this to the end of the year and all that fun. Thanks for sticking with me guys :D


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